Podcasts about new englanders

Jess here! A while back, Sarina and KJ talked about how much they enjoyed Tess Gerritsen's novel, The Spy Coast, and Sarina reassured KJ she'd enjoy book two of the series even more. I had never read a Tess Gerritsen novel, and while I'd heard her name before and vaguely understood she wrote thrillers, I was starting from square one when I downloaded the audio version of The Spy Coast. Now, I'm not an international spy thriller kind of gal. In the abstract, I understand the allure of books like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Six Days of the Condor. Spies! Intrigue! International [almost exclusively men] of mystery! But they have never really floated my proverbial boat. That said, I loved Tess Gerritsen's spies and the world they inhabit. There's a sense of place - nay, a downright LOVE of place - and a retiring, rural New England domesticity that spoke to this retiring, rural New England reader. Book two, The Summer Guests, is even more rooted in Maine, on its history and the social dynamics of its natives and its summer people. Once I tore through those first two books, I went back to Gerritsen's first book, The Surgeon, one of Time Magazine's top 100 thriller/mystery books of all time and the first in the Rizzoli & Isles series, consequently made into a long-running television series. Gerritsen has a fascinating career trajectory, lots to talk about regarding pantsing and plotting, where the ideas come from, and lots of other geeky details about the writing life. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Find Tess at Tessgerritsen.com, or on Bluesky, @TessGerritsen Transcript below!EPISODE 462 - TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHey everyone, it's Jennie Nash, founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, the company I started more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. In October, we'll be enrolling a new cohort of certification students who will be going through programs in either fiction, nonfiction, or memoir, and learning the editorial, emotional, and entrepreneurial skills that you need to be a successful book coach. If you've been curious about book coaching and thinking that it might be something you want to do for your next career move, I'd love to teach you more about it, you can go to bookcoaches.com/waitlist to check out the free training I have—that's bookcoaches.com/waitlist. The training is all about how to make money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers. Fall is always a great time to start something new. So if you're feeling called to do this, go check out our training and see if this might be right for you. We'd love to have you join us.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, this is Jess Lahey, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is the podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, poetry, prose, narrative nonfiction, fiction, creative nonfiction, queries, proposals. This is the podcast about writing all the things. More than anything else, this is the podcast about the writing life and about getting the work done. I am Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my journalism at The Atlantic and The Washington Post, and my bi-weekly (formerly bi-weekly) column at The New York Times, The Parent-Teacher Conference, ran for about three years I am joined today by Sarina Bowen, who has written 50-odd books. She has written lots and lots of romance, and her most recent addition to the world of publishing has been her thrillers, Dying to Meet You and The Five Year Lie. And she has a book coming out this fall called Thrown for a Loop. The reason I am recording this intro on my own—which, as you may know if you've been listening, is highly unusual for us—is because I know myself. And I know when I'm really excited to talk to someone on the podcast; I'm going to flub the intro. I'm going to forget something. I'm going to forget to introduce them altogether. So today, I'm doing that first, so I don't mess it up. A while ago on the podcast, you may have heard Sarina and KJ read some books by an author named Tess Gerritsen. I had heard of Tess Gerritsen, but I had never read any of her books. I just hadn't yet. I haven't read Nora Roberts yet. I haven't read—there are lots of authors I haven't read yet. And sometimes you don't even know where to start. So when Sarina and KJ recommended Tess Gerritsen's new series set in Maine—the first one being The Spy Coast and the second one being The Summer Guests—I figured I had a good place to start. And you know, as a New Englander, I love a good book about New England, and that was the start of my interest in Tess Gerritsen's work. I have gone back to the beginning and started with her book The Surgeon, which was her first book in the series that became the Rizzoli and Isles Series, as well as a television show. Tess Gerritsen has a—she's written through 33 books at this point. And as I now know, she has also directed a documentary called Magnificent Beast about pigs, which I listened to this morning while I was vacuuming the house. I loved it. She also—she has a lot to say about genre, about publishing, about second careers, about a writing place, and about process. So let's just jump right into it. I am so excited to introduce to you today, Tess Gerritsen. So from the perspective of what our listeners love—this podcast, the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast —is super geek. People who love the nuts and bolts and the dorky details of the writing life. Sarina has a past life in finance, and so she tends to be, like, our “no, but let's talk about the numbers” kind of person. I'm just the research super dork, which is why I spent my morning watching your documentary about pigs.Tess GerritsenOh my god! (Laughing)Jess LaheyMagnificent Beast. I—I've joked in the past that if I could, I would probably just research things in—in, you know, maybe there'll be a book out there, maybe there won't, but I would research things and—and just learn as much as I could. And so I loved—loved—your Magnificent Beast documentary. I thought it was fantastic. But one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you, just from the very beginning, is that we feel like you do some pretty incredible world-building and relationship-building with your places and your characters. And so I just—I would love to start there, mainly with the idea of starting with the real nuts and bolts stuff, which is, like, what does an average writing day look like for you? And how do you, sort of—how do you set that up? What does it look like, if you have an average writing day? Maybe you don't.Tess GerritsenWell, it's hard to describe an average writing day, because every day is—there are days when you sit at your desk and you just, you know, pull your hair. And there are days when you get distracted by the news. And there are many days when I just do not want to write. But when I'm writing, the good days are when my characters are alive and talking to me. And it's—it's—you talked about world-building and character-building. That is really key to me. What are they saying to me? Can I hear their voices? And it sounds a little—a little crazy, because I am hearing voices. But it's those voices that really make characters come alive.Jess LaheyI—You have said in other interviews that you are very much—sorry to those of you who hate the terms—that you are very much a pantser. And you are sitting on this interview with a consummate plotter. Sarina is our consummate plotter. So could you talk a little bit about how those character—how those voices—influence, you know, the pantsing of the—of the book, and—and how that works for you?Tess GerritsenWell, I mean, it is weird that I am a pantser. And it's funny—I think that people who are plotters tend to be people who are in finance or in law, because they're used to having their ducks lined up, you know. They—they want everything set up ahead of time, and it makes them feel comfortable. And I think a large part of becoming a pantser is learning to be comfortable with unpredictability. Learning to just let things happen, and know you're going to take wrong turns, know you're going to end up in blind alleys—and yet just keep on forging ahead and change direction. So I suppose that what helps me become a pantser, as I said, is hearing a character's voice. If, for instance, when I wrote The Spy Coast, the first thing I heard about that book was Maggie Bird's voice. And she just said, “I'm not the woman I used to be.” And that's an opening there, right? Because you want to find out, Maggie, who did you used to be? And why do you sound so sad? So a lot of it was just—just getting into her head and letting her talk about what a day-to-day life is, which is, you know, raising chickens and collecting eggs and becoming—and being—a farmer. And then she does something surprising in that very first chapter. There's a fox that's killing her chickens, so she grabs her rifle and kills it with one shot. And that opens up another thing, like—how are you, a 62-year-old woman, able to take out a rifle and kill a fox with one shot? So it's—it's those things. It's those revelations of character. When they come out and they tell you something, or they show you they—they have a skill that you weren't aware of, you want to dig deeper and find out, you know, where did they get that skill?Sarina BowenAnd that is a really fun way to show it. I mean, you're talking today with two people who have also kept chickens.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Jess LaheyAnd had foxes take their chickens, actually.Sarina BowenOh yes, because the two go together.Tess GerritsenYes.Sarina BowenBut yes, I admit I have never shot a fox, and maybe wouldn't.Jess LaheyI have yelled very loudly at a fox, and he actually—I have to say—really mad respect for the fox, because he took one look at me—he did drop the chicken that I was yelling at him for grabbing—and then he went across the street, around the neighbor's house, around the back of the other neighbor's house, and came at the exact same chicken from the other side of the house, where I couldn't see him out the window.Tess GerritsenOh, they are so smart. They are so smart.Jess LaheySo smart. Sarina, it sounded like you had something— you had something you wanted to add, and I interrupted you when we were talking about pantsing and we were talking about world-building and characters speaking to you.Sarina BowenWell, I just had thought that it was a lovely moment to explain why I was so excited to read this book after I heard Tess speak at Thriller Fest 2024, in a packed room where there was nowhere to sit except on the floor. You told the audience a little bit of a story from your real life that—that made you want to write that book. And I wonder if you could tell us what that was, because for me—I mean, we were only five minutes into your talk, and I'm like, oh, I'm—I'm going to download that tonight.Tess GerritsenWell, yes, it was. A lot of my books come from ideas that I've been stewing over for years. I have a folder called the ideas folder. It's an actual physical manila folder. And if I see something in an article or a newspaper or a magazine, I'll just rip it out and stick it in there, and it sometimes takes a long time before I know how to turn this into a book. So the idea for The Spy Coast is a little bit of obscure knowledge that I learned 35 years ago, when I first moved to Maine. My husband is a medical doctor. He opened up a practice, and when he would bring in new patients, he would always get an occupational history. And he used to get this answer—this very strange answer—from his new patients. They would say, “I used to work for the government, but I can't talk about it.” And after he heard that three times, he thought, what town did we land in? And who are these people? And we later found out that on our very short street, on one side of us was a retired OSS person, and on the other side was retired CIA. A realtor told us that our town was full of CIA retirees. So, I mean, of course you want to ask, why did they get here? What are they doing here? What are their lives like? I knew there was a book in there, but I didn't know what that book was. I needed 35 years to come up with the idea. And what I really needed to do was become old and—and realize that as you get older, especially women, we become invisible. People don't pay attention to us. We are over the hill. You know, everybody looks at the young, pretty chicks, but once you start getting gray hair, you fade into the background. And with that experience myself; I began to think more and more about what it's like to be retired. What is it like to be retired from a job that was maybe dangerous, or exciting, or something that you really risked your life to—to achieve? So that was—that was the beginning of The Spy Coast. What happens to CIA retirees—especially women—who are now invisible? But that makes them the best spies of all.Jess LaheyYeah, and we have—we did this really cool thing, this really fun thing for us on the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. It's like a supporter-only thing, where we call First Pages, where very brave authors—very brave writers—submit their first page to us, and we talk about it and decide whether or not we'd want to turn the page. And you have an incredible skill on your first pages. You're very, very good at first pages. And I was thinking about The Summer Guests, that you had this wonderful line that I'm going to read now:Purity, Maine, 1972. On the last day of his life, Purity police officer Randy Pelletier ordered a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee at the Marigold Café,Which immediately reminded me of my very, very favorite line from all of literature—my very favorite first line—which is Irving's first line from A Prayer for Owen Meany, in which he ruins the story for you right there in the first line:I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God.There is this incredible power to first lines. And I'm sort of wondering where—how first lines happen for you. Do they happen first? Do they happen last? Do they happen along the way?Tess GerritsenFirst lines usually happen last. I—it's—I will write the whole book, and I'll think, something's missing in that first chapter. How do I open this up? And, you know, there are things that make lines immediately hypnotic, and one of those things is an inherent contradiction—something that makes you think, wait, okay, you start off this way, but then all of a sudden, the meaning of that line switches. So, yeah, it starts off with, you know, this guy's going to die. But on that last day of his life, he does something very ordinary. He just orders coffee at the local café. So I think it's that contradiction that makes us want to read more. It's also a way to end chapters. I think that—that if you leave your reader with a sense of unease—something is about to go wrong, but they don't know what it is yet—or leave them with an unanswered question, or leave them with, as I said, a contradiction—that is what's page-turning. I think that a lot of thriller writers in particular mistake action for—for being—for being interesting. A car chase on the page is really very boring. But what's interesting is something that—you could feel that tension building, but you don't know why.Sarina BowenI have joked sometimes that when I get stuck on a plot, sometimes I will talk at my husband and—and say, “you know, I'm stuck here.” And he always says, “And then a giant squid attacked.” And it—of course I don't write books that take place where this is possible, so—but it never fails to remind me that, like, external action can sometimes be just, you know, totally pointless. And that if you're stuck, it's because one of your dominoes isn't leaning, you know, in the right spot. So...Tess GerritsenYeah, it's—it's not as much fun seeing that domino fall as seeing it go slowly tilting over. You know, I really learned this when I was watching a James Bond movie. And it starts off—you know, the usual James Bonds have their cold open to those action and chasing and death-defying acts. I found that—I find that really, in that movie anyway—I was like, Ho hum. Can we get to the story? And I found the time when I was leaning forward in my theater seat, watching every moment, was really a very quiet conversation aboard a train between him and this woman who was going to become his lover. That was fascinating to me. So I think that that transfers to book writing as well. Action is boring.Jess LaheyYou and Sarina do something that I feel, as a writer; I would probably not be very good at, which is creating that unease. I—Sarina in particular does this thing... I've read every one of Sarina's books, as a good friend is supposed to do. And I text her, and I say, Why don't they just talk about it and just deal? Get it out in the open! And she's like, you know, we just got to make these people uncomfortable. And you both have this incredible talent for helping—keeping the reader, uh, along with you, simply because there is this sense of unease. We're slightly off-kilter the whole time. And yet in me, as a people pleaser, that makes me very uncomfortable. I want people to be happy with each other. So how do you—if you get to a place where you feel like maybe things aren't off-kilter enough, or things aren't off-balance enough—how do you introduce a little bit of unease into your—into your story?Tess GerritsenWell, I think it comes down to very small points of conflict—little bits of tension. Like, we call it micro-tension. And I think those occur in everyday life all the time. For instance, you know, things that happen that really don't have any big consequence, but are still irritating. We will stew about those for—for a while. And, you know, I used to write romance as well, so I understand entirely what Sarina is doing, because romance is really about courtship and conflict. And it's the conflict that makes us keep reading. We just—we know this is the courtship. So there's always that sense of it's not quite there, because once the characters are happy, the story is over, right?Sarina BowenYeah.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Sarina BowenAlso, writing the ends of romance novels is the least interesting part. Like, what...? Once the conflict is resolved, like, I cannot wait to get out of there.Tess GerritsenRight, exactly. You know, I—I pay attention to my feelings when I'm reading a book, and I've noticed that the books that I remember are not the books with happy endings, because happiness is so fleeting. You know, you can be happy one second, and then something terrible will happen. You'll be unhappy. What lasts for us is sadness, or the sense of bittersweet. So when I read a book that ends with a bittersweet ending—such as, you know, Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove—I ended up crying at the end of that book, and I have never forgotten that ending. Now, if everybody had been happy and there had been nobody to drag all those miles at the end, I would have forgotten that book very quickly. So I think—I try—I always try to leave the end of the book either bittersweet—I mean, you want to resolve all the major plot points—but also leave that sense of unease, because people remember that. And it also helps you, if you have a sequel.Sarina BowenThat's so interesting you've just brought up a couple of really interesting points, because there is a thriller—I actually write suspense now—and one of the books that so captured my attention about five years ago was killing it on the charts. And I thought it was actually a terrible book, but it nailed the bittersweet ending. Like, the premise was solid, and then the bittersweet ending was perfect, and the everything between the first chapter and the last chapter was a hot mess, but—but—um, that ending really stuck with me. And I remember carrying it around with me, like, Wow, they really nailed that ending. You know, and—and maybe that has, like, legs in terms of, like, talking about it. And, you know, if it—if—if it's irritating enough, like, the tension is still there—enough to, like, make people talk about it—it could actually affect the performance of that book. But also, um, one thing that I really love about this series—you have—what is the series title for the...?Tess GerritsenMartini—The Martini Club.Sarina BowenThe Martini Club, right? So The Martini Club is two books now. I inhaled the first one last summer, and I inhaled the second one this summer. And The Martini Club refers to this group of friends—these retired spies. And of course, there are two completely different mysteries in book one and book two. And I noticed a couple of things about the difference between those mysteries that was really fun. So in the first case—or in one of the two cases, let's see—in one of them, the thing that happens in their town is actually, like, related to them. And in the other one, it's kind of not. So to me, that felt like a boundary expansion of your world and your system. But also, I just love the way you leaned into the relationship of these people and their town in such a way. And how did you know to do that? Like, how—what does your toolbox say about how to get that expansiveness in your character set? Like, you know, to—to find all the limits of it?Tess GerritsenThat—you know, so much is like—it's like asking a pole-vaulter how they do it. They just—they have just—I guess its muscle memory. You don't really know how you're doing it, but what I did know was—with age, and because I love these characters so much—it really became about them and about what is going to deepen their friendship? What kind of a challenge is going to make them lean into each other—lean on each other? That's really what I was writing about, I think, was this circle of friends, and—and what you will do, how much you will sacrifice, to make sure your friends are safe. No, you're right—the second book is much more of a classic mystery. Yeah—a girl disappears. I mean, there was—there were—there were CIA undertones in that, because that becomes an important part of the book. But I think that what people are—when people say they love this book—they really talk about the characters and that friendship. And we all want friends like this, where we can go and—and—and have martinis together, and then if we—one of us needs to—we'll go help them bury a body.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Tess GerritsenThat's—they all have shovels, and they're willing to do it. That's the kind of friendship—friends—we want.Jess LaheyWell, and that's funny you mention that—I had an entire question—it wasn't even a question, it was a statement—in here about friendships and being grateful to you for the reminder about the importance of relationships. And this entire podcast was born out of the fact that we were talking writing all the time, and we just wanted an official way to sit down once a week and actually talk about the work. And your work is suffused with just these incredible relationships—whether that's the Rizzoli and Isles—you know, in your first—in the one of your other series—and I'm just—I'm very grateful for that, because we—especially—I think I re—I really crave books about female relationships, especially about older female relationships. And I have been loving your books, and I've—like, as I may have mentioned to you in my initial email—I had—I'm so sorry—never read your books before. And I admitted in the introduction that there are lots of very, very famous authors whose books I have never read. And it's always so exciting to me to dive into someone's series and realize, oh, this person really touches on themes that mean a lot to me, and I can already tell that I'm going to be enjoying a lot of their books to come forward. So thank you for all of the great descriptions of relationships and how we do rely on each other for various aspects of just how we get through all of this stuff.Tess GerritsenYeah—get through life. But you know what's funny about it is that it didn't start that way. For instance, let's go back to Rizzoli and Isles. The very first time they both appear in a book is in The Apprentice. And they don't start off being friends. They start off being—they're so different. As the TV producer once said, “you've really written about Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.” That's okay—they are—in the books. They are not natural friends. But like real-life friendships, sometimes—just kind of develop slowly, and—and they have their ups and downs. So there are times when—when Jane and Maura are barely speaking to each other because of conflicts they have. But by the time book twelve comes around—or maybe book seven comes around—you know that they would risk their lives for each other. So I think that if you're writing a series like Rizzoli and Isles, or like The Martini Club, it really helps to develop the friendship on the fly and see how they react to certain stresses. The next book, which I just turned in, called The Shadow Friends—it even put—pushes them even further, and it really—it really strains a marriage, because it's—it's more about Ingrid, and an old lover comes back into her life. She used to—they were both spies—and he is, like, hot, hot, hot—Antonio Banderas kind of guy. And here's Ingrid, married to Lloyd, you know, who's just a sweet analyst who cooks dinner for her every night. And I—when I was coming up with that story, I thought, I want to write a book about their marriage. So it wasn't—the plot wasn't about, oh, you know, international assassinations, even though that does occur in the book. It's really about the story of a marriage.Jess LaheyAnd it gives you, it gives you added unease. You know, if you have your two characters not speaking to each other, and you know your readers love those characters and crave those characters to be getting along at some point, then that's just another reason that we're following along. I was just thinking about, uh, Michael Connelly, uh, book the other day, because I really, really like the series he did with Renée Ballard and her relationship with the Bosch character, and how that series is totally about crime, but yet it's also very much about the relationship. And I think I follow—I continue to read those because of the relationship between those two human beings, and less so because of the murder mystery sort of stuff.Tess GerritsenI think it really becomes important if you're dealing also with Hollywood television series. I still remember what the producer first said when he called me up about Rizzoli and Isles. He said, "I love your girls, and I think they belong on TV.” He didn't say, I love your plots. He didn't say, I love your mysteries, you know, all your intricate ups and downs. It was really about the girls. So if you hope to sell to a television series, really, it's about characters again.Jess LaheyAbsolutely.Sarina BowenI was going to ask about longevity, because you have so many books, and you're so obviously still invigorated by the process, or there wouldn't be a book three that you just turned in. So how have you been able to avoid just being sick to death of—of writing suspense novel after suspense novel?Tess GerritsenI refused. That's what it is. You know, I—I don't—I guess I could say that I have a little bit of ADHD when it comes to—to the books I write. I cannot—after 13 books of Rizzoli and Isles, I just had a different idea. And it takes—it takes a certain amount of backbone to say no to your publisher, to your editor, to people who are going, well, when's the next one in this series coming out? And to be able to say, I need a break. I need to do something completely different. So over—how many years I've been a writer—almost 40 now—I've written science fiction and historicals and a ghost story and romantic suspense and spy novels and medical thrillers and crime novels. I've been all over the place, but each one of those books that took me out of what I was expected to do was so invigorating. It was a book that I needed to write. As an example, I wrote a book called Playing with Fire. Nobody wanted that book. Nobody expected that book. It was a historical about World War II, and about music—about the power of music—and having to do with the death camps. I remember my publisher going, "What are you doing?" And, you know, it's—it's true—they're—they—they are marketers, and they understood that that book would not sell as well, and it didn't. But it still remains one of my favorite books. And when you want to write a book, you need to write that book. That's all—even—even if nobody wants it.Jess LaheyI actually was—I'm so pleased that this came up, because that was actually going to be my question, because both you and Sarina have done this—done, you know, 90 degrees—whether it's out of, you know, one genre into another—and that, to me, requires an enormous amount of courage. Because you know you have people expecting things from you. And you in particular, Tess, have people saying, "No, I want the next one. I love this relationship. I want the next one." And—and dealing—you're not just dealing with the disappointment of whether it's an agent or an editor, but the disappointment of fans. And that's a pressure as well. So when I used to do journalism, I remember a question I asked of another journalist was, "How do you continue to write without fear of the comment section?" And essentially, for us, that's our—you know, those are our readers. So how do you find that thing within yourself to say, no, this really is the thing that I need to be writing now?Tess GerritsenWell, that is a really—it's a really tough decision to buck the trend or buck what everybody's expecting, because there's a thing in publishing called the death spiral. And if your book does not sell well, they will print fewer copies for the next one. And then that won't sell well. So you start—your career starts to go down the drain. And that is a danger every time you step out of your tried and true series and do something out of—you know, completely out of the ordinary. I think the reason I did it was that I really didn't give a damn. It was—it was like, Okay, maybe this will kill my career, but I've got to write this book. And it was always with the idea that if my publisher did not want that, I would just self-publish. I would just, you know, find another way to get it out there. And I—I was warned, rightly so, that your sales will not be good for this book, and that will—it will hurt the next contract. And I understood that. But it was the only way I could keep my career going. Once you get bored, and you're—you're trapped in a drawer, I think it shows up in your writing.Jess LaheyI had this very conversation with my agent. The—my first book did well. And so then, you know, the expectation is, I'll write like part two of that, or I'll write something for that exact same audience again. And when I told my agent—I said, "You know, this book on substance use prevention and kids—I—it's—I have to write it. And I'm going to write it even, you know, if I have to go out there and sell it out of the trunk of my car." And she said, "Okay, then I guess we're doing this." And yes...Tess Gerritsen(Laughing) They had their best wishes at heart.Jess LaheyAnd honestly, I love—I loved my book that did well. But The Addiction Inoculation is the book I'm most proud of. And, you know, that's—yeah, that's been very important to me.Tess GerritsenI often hear from writers that the book that sold the fewest copies was one that was—were their favorites. Those are the ones that they took a risk on, that they—I mean, they put their heart and soul into it. And maybe those hurt their careers, but those are the ones that we end up being proud of.Jess LaheyI like to remind Sarina of that, because I do remember we text each other constantly. We have a little group, the three of us, a little group text all day long. And there was—I remember when she first wrote a male-male romance, she was scared. She was really scared that this was going to be too different for her readers. And it ended up being, I think, my favorite book that she's ever written, and also a very important book for her in terms of her career development and growth, and what she loves about the work that she does. And so I like to remind her every once in a while, remember when you said that really scared you and you weren't sure how your readers were going to handle it?Sarina BowenRight? Well, I also did that in the middle of a series, and I went looking for confirmation that that is a thing that people did sometimes, and it was not findable. You know, that was...Jess LaheyWhat? Change things up in terms of—change things up in the middle of a series?Sarina BowenIn the middle of a series. And anyway, that book still sells.Tess GerritsenThat is a great act of courage, but it's also an act of confidence in yourself as a writer. There are ways to do it. I think some writers will just adopt a different pen name for something that's way out there.Jess LaheyIt's funny you should say... it's funny you should say that.Sarina BowenWell, no, and I never have done that, but, um—but anyway, yeah, that's hard. I, uh...Jess LaheyYeah.Sarina BowenIt's hard to know. Sometimes...Jess LaheyWe entertain it all the time. We do talk about that as an option all the time. Shouldn't we just pick up and do something completely different? One of the things that I also—I mentioned at the top of the podcast about, you know, you went off—not only have you done lots of different things in terms of your writing—but you went off and you did an entire documentary about pigs. I have—I have to ask you where on earth that came from and why. And it is a total delight, as I mentioned, and I have already recommended it to two people that I know also love the topic. But, you know, to go off—and especially when you usually, as some of us have experienced—our agents saying, so when am I going to see more pages? or when am I going to see the next book? And you say, I'm really sorry, but I have to go off and film this documentary about pigs.Tess GerritsenYes. Well, you know, I was an anthropology major in college, and I've always been interested in the pig taboo. You know, back then, everybody just assumed it was because, yeah, it was disease or they're dirty animals—that's why they're forbidden food. It never quite convinced me, because I'm Chinese-American. Asia—you know, Asia loves pork. Why aren't they worried about all that? So I was in Istanbul for a book tour once, and I remember I really wanted bacon, and, you know, I couldn't get bacon. And then I thought, okay, I really need to find out why pork is forbidden. This is a—this is a cultural and historical mystery that never made sense to me. The explanations just never made sense to me. It cannot be trichinosis. So I told my son that—my son is—he does—he's a filmmaker as well. And he just said, "Well, let's do it. Let's—we will pose it as a mystery," because it is a mystery. So it took us probably two years to go and—you know, we interviewed anthropologists and pet pig owners and archaeologists, actually, just to find out, what do they say? What is the answer to this? And to us, the answer really just came down to this cultural desire for every—every tribe—to define us versus them. You know, they eat pigs. They're not us, so therefore they're the enemy. And it was fascinating because we—we ended up finding out more about pigs than I was expecting, and also finding out that people who have pet pigs can sometimes be a little unusual.Jess LaheyAnd the people who purchase the clothes for the pigs are also crazy.Tess GerritsenYes. Sew outfits for their pigs and sleep with their pigs. And there was—there was one woman who had—she slept on the second floor of her house, so she had an elevator for her pig who couldn't make it up the stairs, and, you know, ramps to get up onto the bed because they've gotten so fat—they've been overfed. But it was—for me, at the heart of it was a mystery.Jess LaheyAs a nonfiction author whose whole entire reason for being is, "I don't know—let's find out," I think that's just the most delightful thing. And I loved your framing as, "I don't know, we have this question, let's go out there and just ask people about it and find the experts." And that's—oh, I could just live on that stuff. So...Tess GerritsenSo could I. You know, research is so enticing. It's enticing. It is—it can get you into trouble because you never write your book. Some of us just love to do the research.Jess LaheySarina actually has taken skating lessons, done glass blowing—what else have you done? Yoga classes and all—all kinds of things in the pursuit of knowledge for her characters. And I think that's a delight.Sarina BowenYes. If you can sign up for a class as part of your research, like, that is just the best day. Like, you know, oh, I must take these ice skating lessons twice a day for five months, because—yeah—or twice a week, but still.Tess GerritsenYou must be a good ice skater then.Sarina BowenI'm getting better.Tess GerritsenSo you never gave them up, I see.Jess LaheyWell, it's fun because she usually writes about hockey, but she has a figure skater coming up in this book that's coming out this fall. And she's like, "Well, I guess I'm just going to have to learn how to figure skate."Tess GerritsenYeah.Sarina BowenI also—one time I went to see Rebecca Skloot speak about her big nonfiction The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.Tess GerritsenOh, okay.Sarina BowenAnd she said that all her best ideas had come from moments in her life when she went, "Wait, what?!"Tess GerritsenYes. Yep.Sarina BowenIncluding for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Like, she learned about the cells in high school—she was in high school biology class—and the teacher said, like, "This woman died in the '60s, but we're still using her cells," and she said, "Wait, what?!" And that's—that's what you made me think of with the pigs. Like, I think...Jess LaheyWell, and also your folder of ideas. I mean, I immediately texted Sarina after listening to a podcast where I heard an ad, and the ad made me go, "Oh that could be creepy." And then I'm like, "Okay, this is—this is a plot. This is going in the folder somewhere." And so you have to just think about how those things could unfold over time. And I love the idea of—and even in journalism—there are articles that I've written where I said, this just isn't their time. And then, like, five years later, I'll hear something out there, and I'm like, okay, finally, it's the time for this thing. And there's a reason you put that article in your idea—in your paper—manila folder of ideas.Tess GerritsenWell, I think writers are—we have to be curious. We have to be engaged in what's going on around us, because the ideas are everywhere. And I have this—I like to say I have a formula. It's called "two plus two equals five." And what that means is, sometimes you'll have a—you'll have a piece of information that, you know, there's a book here, but you haven't figured out what to do with it. And you wait for another piece of information from some completely different source, and you put them together, and they end up being like nuclear fusion—bigger than the…Sarina BowenYes!Jess LaheyYes!Tess GerritsenSome of the parts.Sarina BowenMost every book I've ever written works like that. Like, I have one idea that I drag around for, like, five years, and then I have this other idea, and one day I'm like, oh, those two things go together.Tess GerritsenYep.Jess LaheyYeah, absolutely. I think Stephen King mentioned that about Carrie. I think it was like, telekinesis, and that usually starts about the time of menstruation, and it was like, boom, there was Carrie. You know, those two things came together. I love that so much. So you mentioned that you have just handed in your next book, and we don't—we do not, as a rule, ask about what's next for an author, because I find that to be an incredibly intimidating and horrifying question to be asked. But I would love to hear; you know, is this—is this series one that you hope to continue working on? The main series, mainly because we have quite fallen in love with your little town in Maine—in Purity, Maine. Fantastic name for your town, by the way. It's really lovely. It creates such a nice dichotomy for these people who have seen and heard things during their careers that maybe are quite dark, and then they retire to a place called Purity. Is this a place where we can hopefully spend a little bit of time?Tess GerritsenWell, I am thinking about book number four now. I have an idea. You know, it always starts with—it starts with an idea and doodling around and trying to figure out what—you know, you start with this horrible situation, and then you have to explain it. So that's where I am now. I have this horrible situation, I have to explain it. So, yeah, I'm thinking about book four. I don't know how—you never know how long a series is going to go. It's a little tough because I have my characters who are internationally based—I mean, they've been around the world—but then I can't leave behind my local cop who is also a part of this group as well. So I have to keep an eye out on Maine being the center of most of the action.Sarina BowenRight, because how many international plots can you give Purity, Maine?Tess GerritsenThat's right, exactly. Well, luckily…Jess LaheyLook, Murder, She Wrote—how many things happened to that woman in that small town?Tess GerritsenExactly, exactly. Well, luckily, because I have so many CIA retirees up here, the international world comes to us. Like the next book, The Shadow Friends, is about a global security conference where one of the speakers gets murdered. And it turns out we have a global security conference right here in our town that was started by CIA 40 years ago. So I'm just—I'm just piggybacking on reality here. And—not that the spies up here think that's very amusing.Sarina BowenThat is fantastic, because, you know, the essential problem of writing a suspense novel is that you have to ground it in a reality that everyone is super familiar with, and you have to bring in this explosive bit of action that is unlikely to happen near any of us. And those two things have to fit together correctly. So by, um, by putting your retired spies in this tiny town, you have sort of, like, gifted yourself with that, you know, precise problem solver.Tess GerritsenYeah, reminding us.Sarina BowenYeah.Tess GerritsenBut there's only so far I can take that. I'm not sure what the limits... I think book four is going to take them all overseas, because my local cop, Jo, she's never been out of the country—except for Canada—and it's time for her dad to drag her over to Italy and say, "Your dead mom wanted to come to Italy, so I'm taking you." And, of course, things go wrong in Italy for Jo.Jess LaheyOf course, of course. Well, we're going to keep just banging on about how much we love these books. I think we've already mentioned it in three podcast episodes so far in our “What have you been reading lately that you've really loved?” So we're—we're big fans. And thank you so much for sitting down to talk with us and to—you know, one of the whole points of our podcast is to flatten the learning curve for other authors, so we hope that that's done a little bit of that for our listeners. And again, thank you so much. Where can people find you and your work if they want to learn a little bit more about Tess Gerritsen—her work?Tess GerritsenYou can go to TessGerritsen.com, and I try to post as much information there as I can. But I'm also at Bluesky, @TessGerritsen, and what is now called “X”—a legacy person on X—@TessGerritsen, yes.Jess LaheyThank you so, so much again. And for everyone out there listening, keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game.The Hashtag AmWriting Podcast is produced by Andrew Perella. Our intro music—aptly titled Unemployed Monday—was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output, because everyone deserves to be paid for their work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

After of a winter of exceptionally high natural gas and electricity prices, many New Englanders are asking whether a new natural gas pipeline is the solution.

This week, we're bringing you the first episode of our new series: A Week In Her Wallet, where real women track their spending for seven days — every swipe, tap, and temptation — and then reflect on not just what they bought, but why. In this episode, we're joined by Lizzie, a 41-year-old chiropractor, mom of two, and small-town New Englander who is all about spending with intention. She's self-employed, passionate about local businesses, and has a refreshing perspective on budgeting for real life. Lizzie walks us through: Why she skipped $1,000 concert tickets — and doesn't regret it How her family handles finances and decision-making together What self-care looks like to her Her candid thoughts on gift-giving pressure from her family Why her week felt like a love letter to her town Plus, she reflects on where money seems to “leak” most easily and why she doesn't mind spending on the things that truly bring value. … Does more financial confidence sound good to you, then you might want to try: 

SportsDay Insiders Kevin Sherrington, Evan Grant and Shawn McFarland discuss [00:40] the Rangers' position at the All-Star break and what Chris Young should do. Do Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, plus the imminent return of Jon Gray, change the narrative of a roller-coaster offense? What's Adolis Garcia's future with the Rangers? [26:46] As a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander, Shawn gives his take on new Cowboys' backup QB Joe Milton, a former Patriot, as the guys speculate on whether he's a legitimate backup to Dak Prescott. [36:16] They also discuss Cooper Flagg's summer season and Paige Bueckers' viral moment at a news conference.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SportsDay Insiders Kevin Sherrington, Evan Grant and Shawn McFarland discuss [00:40] the Rangers' position at the All-Star break and what Chris Young should do. Do Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, plus the imminent return of Jon Gray, change the narrative of a roller-coaster offense? What's Adolis Garcia's future with the Rangers? [26:46] As a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander, Shawn gives his take on new Cowboys' backup QB Joe Milton, a former Patriot, as the guys speculate on whether he's a legitimate backup to Dak Prescott. [36:16] They also discuss Cooper Flagg's summer season and Paige Bueckers' viral moment at a news conference.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today's program, we're joined by the President and CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce Paul Neidzweicki. Paul tells us about the success of the Fourth of July weekend on Cape Cod. Then we turn to the issue of affordable housing in New England. Rhonda Pieroni CEO of Hearth INC, joins us to talk about that nonprofits efforts to increase affordable housing for older New Englanders. Paul Linet founder and President of 3iHOME tells us about a number of projects his organization is supporting in the state of Maine for those living with disabilities. We're also joined by the owner of Broadway Capital, Mike Vienneau. Mike's company is responsible for a new affordable housing project in the city of Chelsea. Finally, the executive editor of the Boston Business Journal, Doug Banks is our guest to talk about the major business headlines of the week.

This is an Annette on the Road post at Non-Boring History, in which your host, historian Annette Laing, plays tourist around the US and UK.Voiceover podcasts of NBH posts are normally only available to paid subscribers, but this time, it's a free sample. Join us today to get every one Annette records!Note from AnnetteJames Garfield belongs to that select group of American presidents whom people remember—if at all— for being assassinated. Look, I'm not an exception to “people”. I'm a historian, sure. Dr. Laing, that's me! But historians don't know everything about history. Not even in our own subjects. Not even close. Or close to close.Hoosen and I did not mean to stop at President James Garfield's home. But while Hoosen was peering at our tires in this land-that-time-forgot-yet-cool gas station parking lot in Mentor, Ohio, I peered at Google Maps. I noticed we were a half mile from the James A. Garfield House, and that it's owned by the National Parks Service.Sorry, libertarians, but even non-historian Hoosen has noticed that a federal government museum is a guarantee of high quality, and as is sometimes the case, as here, it means free admission. Think of the taxpayer value as I spread the word and you read it! Trust me, there's no commercial value in a Garfield museum, but there is value.This museum isn't about Garfield's extremely short presidency (100 days) much less his political career. It's about James Garfield's home, and what happened to that home after his untimely death. Home, Sweet Home!Middle class Victorians—American and British— put the family home on a pedestal. Until now, the home for most Americans had been a workplace, a farm or a shop or a workshop, where the whole family worked together, ate, and slept. But big changes in the economy in the 19th century meant that many men of the new middle class now left the home to work, kind of the reverse of going remote. Such men now thought of home sentimentally, as a cosy refuge from a cruel and complicated world. Their wives (typically more educated than their predecessors) continued to stay home, but now had servants to do much of the drudgery. Middle-class women were encouraged to consider the home their domain. The Garfields were no exception. This estate, Lawnfield, is their home, and it appears largely as it did when Mrs. Garfield died. The lawn of its name would become more important than the field. When the Garfields bought Lawnfield, however, it was a working farm. Garfield bought this place because he wanted his kids to grow up on a farm, just like he had, only with more money. James Garfield thought that farms were an essential part of a great, healthy childhood. Which is striking, because James Garfield was an unlikely champion of the “good old days”: He helped usher in the modern age.Garfield fought in the Civil War, tried to improve civil rights and education for newly freed slaves, and even participated in the great money grab as the American “gilded age” began. He also added eleven rooms to his farmhouse to accommodate the family in comfort, so his commitment to the simple farm life had its limits. Yet James Garfield wasn't entirely comfortable with modern life. Garfield had grown up in what historians call a “face to face” society, in which people mostly dealt with people they knew, or at least recognized. Even the “front porch” political campaign technique James Garfield invented harked back to an earlier time: On Lawnfield's front porch, he met voters. But he also met there with newspaper reporters who communicated his words around the nation and the world- very modern. Lawnfield, as a farm, was mostly cosplay for the Garfields. Most of the farmwork at Lawnfield was done by hired men. But James and the children also dabbled at farm chores, pitching hay to build character. James Garfield was a self-made and possibly a teensy bit corrupt politician (see Credit Mobilier scandal).I've written at Non-Boring History about an over-the-top monument to two of the most scandalous men involved in Credit Mobilier :So James Garfield was very much a man of the mid-19th century. He was torn between the modern world of cities and business, and the agricultural world of his youth that was fast disappearing.What I most enjoyed about visiting Lawnfield was that about 80% of the house furnishings really had belonged to the Garfields, which is very unusual for a house museum. Let me rush to add that I'm not one of those people who's super-interested in old furniture. No, what I liked about the Garfield house is that I felt (rightly or wrongly) that I could sense the family personality. No, no ghosts, please. I'm a historian, for heavens' sake. I have some standards. No, okay, I don't, I love ghost stories, but not today.Home Shadowy Home: American Victorians I love a gloomy, gaslit Victorian house. Yes, ok, the Garfield home is all-electric now for health and safety, but work with me here. The house is dark, cluttered, and makes me think of arsenic poisoning, and other morbid mid-Victorian subjects. Look, the problem isn't me, at least I don't think it is. Victorians were weird, and especially the people I think of as mid-Victorians, a period I am going to date from 1851 to 1875, based on British historian Geoffrey Best's definition of mid-Victorian Britain. In this case, those dates marking off the era work fairly well for America too. Oh, what the hey. If Geoffrey Best could decide when a historical period ends, so can Annette Laing! I say 1881 for the end of the mid-Victorian era. Oh, that's the year James Garfield died? You don't say. Perfect! 1881 it is! ANNOUNCEMENT from the NBH QUALITY CONTROL GNOME : Dr. Laing is correct that historians can argue for changes in commonly-accepted dates for the beginning and end of historical periods. Most historians, however, would consider changing the ending date of the British mid-Victorian era simply because a United States president, in Annette's words, “snuffed it” that year is, however, unconvincing. Thank you.Mid- Victorians like James Garfield lived in an increasingly modern age, and yet death stalked the land like, as the old BBC historical sitcom Blackadder would put it, a giant stalking thing. Americans and Brits, especially those living in cities, were defenseless against disease. Antibiotics were almost a century in the future. Anesthetics and antiseptics were in their infancy. Germs were a new concept. Sewer systems and clean water were a novelty. Victorians were only just learning that illness wasn't a product of “bad air” (note those high ceilings and lots of windows in Victorian institutions). Result? Children, especially, died in horrifying numbers. James and Lucretia Garfield lost two kids in infancy, and James himself was named for a brother, James, who had died young. Get a little shudder at the idea of naming a child after a deceased sibling? Welcome to history!How gloomy is this hallway in the Garfield House? In fact, my wonderful phone camera automatically brightened up the room: It was actually darker than you see. Here's Claire, our NPS tour guide (but without the intimidating Smokey the Bear uniform) who was full of energy, knowledge, and good cheer, which while appreciated, seemed at first to be all wrong for this setting. I was thinking we should have been led by some guy dressed as Lurch the Butler from the Addams family.This hall wasn't a welcoming space to strangers when the Garfields lived here. Most callers had to run through a selection process. When a servant greeted you at the door, she looked you up and down to see if you were suitable for admission. If you passed her first test, she invited you into this hall, and you deposited your visiting card on a waiting plate. A visiting card was basically like a business card, except that only your name was on it. If you graduated high school in the US, you may recall the company that expensively printed your graduation invitation also hit you up for visiting cards. A rip off, wasn't it?Right. Anyway. So the servant now shows you into the reception area (entryway is in the photo above, next to the dude on the left who's staring at the ceiling). Here you wait awkwardly, standing or sitting on a bench or upright chair, while the maid takes the card upstairs to the mistress of the house. She will decide whether to come down and receive you in the parlor, or whether she will instruct the maid to tell you she's unavailable (at least to you) and show you the door. Until then, you are not admitted into the family home. Indeed, there were sliding wooden “pocket” doors in this reception room which were closed so you can't see into the family room or the dining room that leads off it. The pocket doors are now gone, but they were once there, as I pointed out to a surprised Claire the guide, who examined the doorways and confirmed my hunch, while everyone else wondered how that funny little British woman knew such a thing, or thought me some ghastly showing-off Karen.This reception area, created for the purposes of the odd little ritual I just described, wasn't here when the Garfields moved in, or even when James died. It was originally the kitchen. The reception area was devised by Mrs. Garfield after her husband's death. That's because, in her very public widowhood, Mrs. Garfield had further converted the home from workplace to middle-class family sanctuary.On Garfield (man, not cartoon cat)James Abram Garfield may have been the poorest man ever to have ended up as President, and he was definitely the last United States President to be born in a log cabin, a type of tiny dwelling that definitely wasn't a lifestyle choice in 1831.Not only was James Garfield's family poor, but they got poorer: His dad, Abram, died when he was a baby, and he and his four siblings were raised in poverty by his single mother, Eliza. Like many Americans, and especially in new Midwestern states like Ohio, the Garfields were repeat migrants. Eliza's family started out in Wales, something of which she was very proud, while Abram's came from Warwickshire, Shakespeare's county, two centuries before James' birth. The first American Garfields came over as part of the Great Migration of Puritans in 1630 who started Massachusetts. But, like many poor New Englanders, some Garfields eventually moved on to New York State, where land was cheaper.Garfield's dad, Abram, traveled to Ohio all the way from rural New York to propose to the girl of his dreams. He arrived to discover she had already married someone else, and so, not wanting to waste the journey, he married her sister instead. When James was a baby, Abram and his wife Eliza were caught up in the Second Great Awakening of the early 1830s, a massive evangelical Christian movement that swept America. As an early Americanist, I'm more familiar with the first Great Awakening (about a century earlier) but the second was just as profound. The Garfields got religion, but Abram died not long after. James, as the youngest, became very close to his mum, Eliza.So, in short, young James Garfield was poor, fatherless, and after his mother remarried and then divorced, a member of a scandalous family. He was ostracized by his peers. But he had the kind of rags-to-riches success story that Victorian Americans loved, and that were broadcast in the books of Horatio Alger. Indeed, Alger wrote a biography of Garfield called From Canal Boy to President. Alger's implied message was that if you're not rich, you're just not trying hard enough, a message that has caused Americans great anxiety from that day to this, and kind of ignores the roles of inherited wealth, connections, corruption, and plain old luck in gaining worldly success.James Garfield didn't have boyhood friends. So, instead, he read books, and learned. He left home at 16, and tried working on the new canals of the 1840s. But illness forced him home. His mother encouraged him to try school, which he did, and the education bug bit him. After two years of schooling, he was determined to go to college. Working as a part-time teacher, carpenter, and janitor, James Garfield paid his own way through Williams College in Massachusetts. And before anyone says “He couldn't afford to do that now,” he would certainly have qualified for full financial aid today.When I read Garfield described as a “radical Republican” and an abolitionist, I figured I had a handle on his politics. But I quickly realized that no, I don't, and I don't have time to learn enough to write confidently on his career. I really don't get 19th century politics —good luck getting that kind of honesty from pretendy “historians” of the blowhard fake variety! Sure, Garfield was radical: He supported abolition, and education for former slaves. But he opposed the eight hour day, labor unions, and federal government relief during economic downturns. So I'm not going to write about his politics until I read a book or two.Back to Garfield's house and family!Garfield's Doting MumI started to get a feeling of looming tragedy when the tour got to this room. This was where Garfield's mum Eliza lived when she moved in with the family. Check out the impractical but gorgeous Victorian stained glass firescreen emblazoned with Garfield's face in the top right corner. A firescreen is supposed to prevent burning embers entering the room from a fireplace. In summer, when the fireplace wasn't used, the fire screen served as a decorative thingy. This firescreen, featuring Garfield's head in stained glass, is just one of several images of Garfield in his mother's bedroom, as you can see above. Eliza outlived her favorite child, the boy who, unbelievably, had become president, by several years. It was, it seemed to me, a tragic room, a fragile room. I was already thinking of the gloomy Garfield home as a very sad place.Yet this was also a home filled with people, judging from the number of bedrooms. This one caught my eye because of the delicately patterned carpet.Let's take a closer look, shall we?WHAT HELL IS THIS? Was President Garfield a Nazi before Nazis were a thing?? No worries. The swastika was a symbol of good luck before the Nazis ruined it. Please try to look at this carpet from the perspective of people who had never heard of Hitler, and would be horrified if they had. Real, Flesh and Blood Americans: A President and His FamilyRoom by room, the Victorian Garfield family came to life. The dining room, where they gathered, was a typically formal middle-class Victorian room, sure. But the dining room was warmed by a fireplace surrounded by individually painted tiles that every child had a hand in creating. Suddenly, I was intrigued. Painting personalized tiles was a project that suggested a happy home. There were at least two pianos, so this wasn't the quiet house that greets us today: I imagine a kid or two was always bashing away on the ivories. No, wait, they were Victorians . . . Playing the piano properly, with straight backs. Or was I stereotyping?Garfield's children remained a muddled lot in my head, but I did enjoy the teenage girl room, with its “Turkish corner”, bright fabric wall hangings over a daybed, kind of like having a batik hanging over a beanbag for a later generation, and its cluttered dressing table (think loads of make-up today).Garfield's library was a very masculine space, just what you would imagine a Victorian father would have. A sort of ship feel to the design. Pictures of Civil War Union General William T. Sherman, French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, and founder of Germany Otto Von Bismarck, an odd collection of powerful men, lined up on the walls. And, of course, a huge, eclectic book collection, including the delightfully titled Brain Hygiene, a Victorian manual of psychology from the people who brought you measuring heads to check for mental illness (Oh, and Americans, gotta love your often slightly odd applications of the word “hygiene” over the years, just saying. Love you. Mwah.)The highlight of the house in my view, though, was this chair in Garfield's study. His kids had it made for him in light of Dad's habit of sitting in a desk chair sideways while reading, draping his legs over the side. Can't you just see him lounging in this? Much less formal and stuffy than his portraits and the library suggest!A Real Victorian Woman: Mrs. Garfield Takes ChargeFor me, Lucretia Garfield did not come at all into the picture until Garfield's assassination, and then, boy, did she. A Victorian GoFundMe raised the equivalent of millions for the family, and Lucretia sprang into action with the money. She had all the farm buildings (except the house) moved back on the lot, away from the road, and the house expanded to be more befitting of a martyred president. She completed Lawnfield's emphasis as a respectable middle-class family home that received frequent visitors, more than a working farm. And Lawnfield was an increasingly modern home. A widowed Lucretia did not shrink away from technical stuff. She learned that there was a source of natural gas on the property, and had the power source converted to gas from coal. The gas house is still on the grounds, next to the visitor center. Garfield 's library now became the focus of Lawnfield's third role as a semi-public shrine to a martyred President. Lucretia expanded the library in the years after her husband's death, adding a walk-in safe for official documents that even included a desk for researchers who hopefully didn't have claustrophobia. Lucretia basically created the first US Presidential Library, although the official holder of that title is the purpose-built Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York.There's even a touch of Lucretia in the remodeled library: A photo of Queen Victoria, who had written Lucretia a letter after James's death. Queen Victoria, who became a professional widow after Prince Albert's early death at age 41, twenty years before Garfield's assassination, wrote Mrs. Garfield a very sweet letter of consolation, which you can also see on site. I was pleasantly surprised by her words. I thought Victoria would, as usual, turn the letter's subject immediately to Albert (Never mind your husband, what about mine?) but she only did that a little bit in her note to Lucretia Garfield. When Death and Life Came to LawnfieldA deranged assassin named Charles Guiteau shot James Garfield at a train station in Washington DC in September 1881, just three months after he was inaugurated. Garfield took two months to die, and might even have survived if his doctors had paid more attention to British surgeon Joseph Lister's work, and not messed around in Garfield's wound with unwashed hands and instruments.Garfield was popular, and especially so after his death, only 100 days into his presidency, because it came as such a shock to the nation. In the museum in the visitor center, you will find all the creepy Victorian cult of death stuff on display: The preserved mattress used as an improvised stretcher to get him from the train station to a bed. The black-bordered stationery. The death mask. The souvenirs. The works. But our tour guide, Claire, insisted that the Garfield children later remembered Lawnfield as a happy, lively place. Wikipedia uses the word “cheerful” to describe the family who came to the White House in 1881. James Garfield, the fatherless boy from poverty (but whose family roots in New England suggested he had inherited educational wealth), and Lucretia Garfield, the intelligent and educated woman of her time whom Garfield met in college in Massachusetts, had done well by their five surviving children. Alone, Lucretia took charge, caring for kids, mother-in-law, home, and new role as Presidential widow. These people aren't remote and fascinating relics. They're real. Lucretia Garfield long outlived her husband, and spent at least part of the year at this house until her own death in 1918.Before leaving, I had a chat with Mary the National Parks Service ranger at the reception desk. Yes, Mary was one of those unlikely-looking museum staff in a quasi-military uniform with broad hat, Brits, don't worry, I don't get it either. But Mary was very pleasant. She asked me where Hoosen and I were headed next, and I told her. She said, “Oh, but you'll know about Guiteau, of course?”No. I didn't know about Guiteau and his connection to my next destination. But I was about to find out. Nothing is newThis post first appeared in earlier form (not much different) at Non-Boring History in 2022. Our next stop, long planned (unlike our stop in Mentor, Ohio), was in New York State, about 350 miles away. By astonishing coincidence, it really did have a direct connection with James Garfield, and also a very different interpretation of domestic bliss from the Garfield home in Mentor.Did you know? Become a paid subscriber and you get access to all my work. That includes EVERY weekly Tuesday post and my Sometimes Saturday posts for supporting subscribers only. It's a deal, I tell you! Going paid also gives you access to more than five hundred other still-fresh posts, including these, about our fascinating visit to a unique place in New York State that followed our stop in Mentor:Part 2 includes my chat with Dr. Tom Guiler, the resident historian at this truly astonishing site in New York:I'm Annette Laing, a Brit in America, and I am beyond grateful to every “Nonnie”, aka paying subscriber, in the US, UK, Canada, and around the world, who supports Non-Boring History. No exaggeration: I cannot do this without you and more people like you. In going paid, you can take pride in knowing that you're making it possible for me to continue to write for you as the world churns around us. Not yet a Nonnie? Please join us. Details: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit annettelaing.substack.com/subscribe

If you're a New Englander and in particular someone who frequents the Cape, you're no stranger to Summertime traffic jams heading to and from the Cape! While Cape Cod offers beautiful beaches with a wide range of local shops and restaurants to enjoy, it can take hours of sitting in traffic just to enjoy it. With that being said, is Cape Cod worth dealing with the unbearable traffic?Now you can leave feedback as you listen to WBZ NewsRadio on the FREE iHeart Radio app! Just click on the microphone icon in the app, and be sure to set WBZ NewsRadio as your #1 preset!

Determine what most people tend to associate signatures with from a personal standpoint. Learn just how far back the practice involving signatures dates to. Understand why signatures involving historical documents have proven to be significant. Agree if it's fair to say we've been led into believing that every delegate present at the Pennsylvania State House signed his official signature on the Declaration of Independence Document come July 4, 1776. Go behind the scenes and learn what took place two days prior to July 4, 1776. Discover if there was more than one president presiding over the debates and meetings during Second Continental Congress. Get introduced to a 39 Year Old Man from Massachusetts from a background standpoint. Receive a timeline of morning events that took place on July 4, 1776, including what the 39 Year Old Massachusetts Man had done. Receive an in depth analysis behind what people used in the form of pen writing materials prior to modern day times. Discover just how excellent the 39 Year Old Man's handwriting had become prior to and around July 4, 1776. Determine if this particular New Englander had ever led any movements behind separating from England, the Mother Country. Agree if most people tend to have a strong notion that all of our forefathers were ardent radicals who advocated separation from England well before July 4, 1776. Learn where the 39 Year Old Massachusetts Man stood along the greater political spectrum. Confirm if in fact the 39 Year Old New Englander had established any big precedent come morning of July 4, 1776. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

June 17, 2025, marks the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first full-scale battle of what would become the American War for Independence. Although technically a British victory, Bunker Hill proved that colonial soldiers could hold their own against the might of the British Empire. New England militiamen inflicted 1,054 casualties on the British, 50 percent of the British force. The New Englanders sustained 411 casualties that day, including the man who stood at the heart of this battle: Dr. Joseph Warren. Who was Dr. Joseph Warren, and why did he risk his life in the first major battle of the Revolutionary War? What drove this physician, political thinker, and revolutionary leader to become the face of the American Revolution in Boston? Christian Di Spigna, Executive Director of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation, joins us to explore these questions and commemorate this important anniversary with details from his book, Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero. Christian's Foundation | Book  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/413 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

  American whale oil lit the world. The Industrial Revolution couldn't have happened without it. Connecticut was part of the whaling industry of the nineteenth century that sent thousands of American ships manned by tens of thousands of men to hunt whales across the world's oceans. Stonington, Mystic, New London, and New Haven were part of New England's predominance in successful  whaling. In fact, New London, Connecticut is known today as the “Whaling City”.    My guest Eric Jay Dolan  is the author of sixteen award-winning books on maritime history. In this episode, we will be talking about the history of American whaling taken from his work in Leviathan The History of Whaling in America published in 2007 byW.W. Norton Press.  His latest book, is Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World. Dolin lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts.   Note: Listeners may find this  episode disturbing. Whaling was a brutal trade - we are describing the industry in its historic context.   To find out more about the other books that Eric has written, go to his website:  www.ericjaydolin.com/   His website also has information on upcoming events he's doing and contact information. He is available for book talks and lectures both in person and remotely.    You'll find the link to the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park here: www.nps.gov/nebe/index.htm   Don't forget that our August 1st episode will feature Mystic Seaport's new whaling exhibit.   ----------------------------------------------------- Like Grating the Nutmeg? Want to support it? Make a donation! 100% of the funds from your donation go directly to the production and promotion of the show. Go to ctexplored.org to send your donation now.   This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.   Follow executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at WeHa Sidewalk Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!  

On this episode of That's Rad, a podcast presented by the Littleton Food Co-op, we're kicking off summer with a big scoop of Gifford's Famous Ice Cream. Or, should we say *THE* big scoop, as Gifford's CEO Lindsay Skilling sits down for an interview. Skilling is a fifth-generation ice cream maker in the Gifford family, overseeing day-to-day operations and growth of the company, along with her siblings and cousin. She and Anastasia talk about what it was like “growing up Gifford,” what makes the Maine-based company and product so special, and why it has won the hearts of the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, Portland Sea Dogs, and New Englanders alike. They also take a look back at Gifford's devastating 2023 factory fire, and discuss the state of recovery today. Listeners will be left with a message about the importance of family, doing work you care about, and to never take a scoop of ice cream for granted. Warning: cravings for Gifford's Famous Ice Cream will occur, proceed with caution. The Littleton Food Co-op is a proud retailer and supporter of Gifford's Famous Ice Cream and hundreds of other New England food brands. As the first and only consumer-owned food co-op in northern New Hampshire, Littleton Co-op exists to serve the needs of its members and the greater North Country community. While everyone is welcome to join the membership base of over 11,000 folks committed to promoting healthy choices for people and planet, membership is not required to shop at the store. Visit us in cozy Littleton, New Hampshire or online at littletoncoop.com. See ya at the Co-op!

What even is Substack? And how can an entrepreneur use it to support their marketing efforts?Listen to Sara ramble on about how she uses Substack and why you actually don't need to be jumping on this newest platform.Meet Sara Noel:Sara Noel is a Website Copywriter, Marketing Mentor, Unapologetic Squirrel (aka ADHDer), Champion of Single Moms, World's Loudest Noah Kahan Fan, and the most unfiltered business owner on the Internet. She's the proudest F-bomb-dropping New Englander you'll ever meet, the "queen of over delivering" (according to her students and clients), and she's wicked obsessed with helping business owners learn how to write better website copy.www.betweenthelinescopy.comwww.betweenthelinescopy.com/sprintwww.betweenthelinescopy.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠Find Felly:⁠fellyday.com⁠⁠threads.net/@fellyday

About the Guest: Dr. Fred PutnamFred Putnam retired after forty years of teaching high school, college, and graduate school; for twelve of those years he was Professor of Bible & Liberal Studies in the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University (2012-2024), where he helped to design, and taught in, the program leading to the MA in Teaching [MAT] in classical education. Beginning as a seminary professor of Biblical Hebrew and Koiné Greek, his teaching expanded to include not only the languages and interpretation of the Bible, but also linguistics, translation theory and practice, English literature, philosophy, etc. During those years of teaching, experiences with students led him from being a fairly conventional teacher (lectures, quizzes, tests, grades, attendance, etc.) to a text- (or subject-) and student-centered pedagogy that others have identified as “classical”. The main thrust of his teaching has always been helping students learn to read-learning to attend to, reflect on, and respond to texts, whatever those texts may be (including poems, novels, Scripture, works of art and music, etc.). In the Templeton Honors College, he led undergrad courses on the Old and New Testaments, Hebrew, Greek, and seminars on Joseph Pieper, The Count of Monte Christo, and philosophy of education, and five masters-level courses in the MAT: "Classical Pedagogy I: The Culture of the Classroom", "Philosophy & History of Education II: The American Public School System", "The Ethos of a School", "Drama in the Classical School (With an Emphasis on Shakespeare)", and "Teaching the Bible as a Classic Text" (online through the Templeton Honors College). While homeschooling their daughters, Fred and his wife met weekly with homeschooled high-schoolers; he taught Shakespeare, poetry, literature, philosophy, Hebrew, and Greek, while his wife tutored individual students in reading and creative writing. Born in New Hampshire, he grew up on farms in northeast Connecticut, emigrated to PA in 1970, and insists that he is a New Englander on "southern assignment". He knows that hills are made of granite, Guernseys give the best milk, and continues to await a real northern-style winter. An ordained minister, he preaches in various churches in southeastern Pennsylvania, where he and his wife live near their daughters and grandchildren, and where he also reads, translates and analyzes the Hebrew and Greek Bible, and putters. Show NotesIn this episode, Adrienne and Dr. Putnam discuss the seminal works of Josef Pieper. They also do a deep dive into what a beautiful way of teaching really looks like. Some highlights include:How Dr. Putnam teaches (What is classical pedagogy?)Teaching & learning are relational activities-- the teacher's view of a student is central to the pedagogyHis course: The Ethos of a School-- how a school can establish and maintain a humane identity even during major changesHow Pieper can help teachers understand virtues and their applications in teachingHow Pieper can help us understand what it really means to learn and how it affects being a teacherUnderstanding the nature of being a person and its implications for teachingResources MentionedAn Anthology by Josef PieperOnly the Lover Sings by Josef PieperLeisure, The Basis of Culture by Josef PieperThe Courage to Teach: The Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker J. PalmerHow Children Learn by John HoltTeaching with Your Mouth Shutby Donald L. Finkel TedTalk: Kathryn Shultz on Being Wrong https://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong?language=en________________________________________________________Beautiful Teaching online courses:BT online webinars, interactive courses, and book studies registration: https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/Reading Josef Pieper with Dr. Fred Putnam will take place on Thursday evenings Sept-Dec. Space is very limited. This is a seminar experience. Interaction with Dr. Putnam is essential for this online course. If you are interested in having this immersive experience with him, you can enroll here: https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/course/reading-josef-pieper-with-fred-putnam________________________________________________________This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★ _________________________________________________________Credits:Sound Engineer: Andrew HelselLogo Art: Anastasiya CFMusic: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic © 2025 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserve

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Jena Brown, and Kevin Tumlinson as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including stories about novelists becoming video game writers, NetGalley, and Amazon. Then, stick around for a chat with Sarina Bowen!Sarina Bowen is a #1 Amazon bestselling author, a 24-time USA Today bestseller, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary novels. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a BA in economics.A New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country in the 1760s, Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. She lives with her family on a few wooded acres in New Hampshire.Sarina's books are published in more than 15 languages with twenty or so international publishers.She is a sitting council member on the Authors Guild, with committee work in finance and advocacy.

It is July 1675 in New England. On June 23, fighting men of the Wampanoag nation and of Plymouth Colony had begun killing each other and enemy civilians in earnest. The question was whether this still small conflict would remain a local and short dust-up within Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag lands encompassed by the colony's borders as defined by the New Englanders, or would it spread more widely? That question was very quickly answered – the wildfire of King Philip's War would spread to encompass virtually all of New England east of the Connecticut River and up the coast of Maine. This episode explains how it happened. The image for this episode on the website is a drawing of King Philip - Metacom - by Paul Revere, who 250 years ago today (April 8, 1775), was riding to Concord to warn the locals, not yet on the famous Midnight Ride but on a false alarm that turned out to be an unplanned dress rehearsal. Maps of New England during King Philip's War X/Twitter – @TheHistoryOfTh2 – https://x.com/TheHistoryOfTh2 Facebook – The History of the Americans Podcast – https://www.facebook.com/HistoryOfTheAmericans Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website) Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War Matthew J. Tuininga, The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America's First People Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War

McCoy Stadium, home to the precious memories of many southern New Englanders is coming down. Locals are mourning the demolition of the Pawtucket icon.

(0:00) Leroy Irvin and Cerrone Battle begin the final hour of the show with The Entertainment Report: featuring talk of "Celtics City", Lamar Jackson's acting career and Tracy Morgan's health status. The Dynamic Duo segue to the sale of the Boston Celtics and their initial thoughts and concerns. (13:32) Irvin and Battle stay in the NBA with commentary on the Lakers fans and new Celtics ownership. The duo break down their optimism in the new ownership group, led by Bill Chisholm, due to Chisholm being a native New Englander. Leroy notices the Celtics playing better without Jaylen Brown. (24:46) The Playa's Call closes out the show. Leroy and Cerrone continue to screen calls on the Celtics. They speculate on the future of the Celtics. They also discuss gambling and the enjoyment of watching sports.

In 2002, Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt were riding high following their first successful life insurance scam. Before the women set their sights on their next victim, Kenneth McDavid, there was another scheme brewing. This one, developing across the country, and involving an elderly man named Fred Downie. At 96-years-old, this widowed New Englander owned a house on Cape Cod, and somehow befriended a young woman named Kecia Golay, Helen Golay's youngest daughter.  Kecia soon convinced Fred to move to Southern California, where her mother owned several properties. Fred Downie agreed and would indeed find his place in the sun, though only for a short time. He'd write his niece Mildred letters about the glory of west coast living. As the months rolled by, however, the letters got more despondent. And then, the letters stopped. Soon, Mildred would learn that Fred was dead.  Unfortunately for Helen and Olga, their claim on an insurance policy for Kenneth McDavid landed on the desk of Ed Webster, a detail-oriented insurance investigator who previously worked as a private eye. And Ed had questions. Soon, the LAPD got involved. Through Kenneth McDavid's case, they learned about Fred Downie's case which only raised more questions. Why was 97-year-old Fred Downie in the middle of the road, unattended, when he was struck by a car? And why was he carrying funeral instructions on him when he died?  Sponsors: Hers: forhers.com/dirtymoney for your personalized weight loss options Armoire: armoire.style/dirtymoney to get up to 50% off your first month Follow host, Jami Rice, on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube @JamiOnAir to keep up with this story and other true crime cases she's deep-diving into and providing commentary on. Check out Jami's other true crime podcasts, MURDERISH and Lipstick & Lies, which are available in all podcast apps. Dirty Money Moves is a collaboration between MURDERISH and Cloud10 Media. Executive Producers are: Jami Rice and Sim Sarna Research and writing by: Zach Selwyn If you enjoy Dirty Money Moves, please do us a favor and give the podcast a 5-star rating and review in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any podcast player. Sources are available at MURDERISH.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Home Depot, which makes most of its money from renovations, said small projects are driving its sales. That suggests homeowners are staying put — maybe improving the home they have while waiting for a clearer picture of the economy. Meanwhile, home prices just keep rising, although market volatility has cooled off. Also in this episode: When Canadian energy tariffs take effect, New Englanders will pay up and consumer confidence drops amid inflation anxiety.

Home Depot, which makes most of its money from renovations, said small projects are driving its sales. That suggests homeowners are staying put — maybe improving the home they have while waiting for a clearer picture of the economy. Meanwhile, home prices just keep rising, although market volatility has cooled off. Also in this episode: When Canadian energy tariffs take effect, New Englanders will pay up and consumer confidence drops amid inflation anxiety.

Talk about being unstoppable, I can offer no better example than our guest this time, Nick Prefontaine. My impression is that Nick grew up as a pretty normal kid, but at the age of fourteen his life changed when he suffered a major traumatic brain injury that left him paralyzed, unable to talk nor even able to feed himself. Nick will take us through his experience including his decision along the way to eventually leave the hospital by running out the door. Roughly 60 days after entering a rehabilitation hospital Nick met his goal by running out of the hospital when he was discharged. How did he do it? As he tells us he was able to employ what he later called the S.T.E.P. system. What is S.T.E.P? It stands for Support, Trust, Energy and Persistence. At the age of 16, Nick while still in school began learning the real estate world. He will tell us about some of the lessons he learned along the way which are quite fascinating. Today in his mid-thirties, Nick still works in real estate along with his father, but he also has formed his own company named Common Goal. Only a few years ago Nick began learning how to coach and help others who are facing serious challenges in their lives. He works especially with people who are experiencing serious brain injuries such as what he encountered. He is a successful author and coach. There are many good life lessons that come out of my time with Nick Prefontaine and I am sure you will agree with me that his observations are invaluable and worth exploring. You can even visit his website, www.NickPrefontaine.com/step” where you can obtain a free copy of his eBook describing in detail his S.T.E.P. system. About the Guest: Nick Prefontaine is a 3x best selling author and was named a top motivational speaker of 2022 in Yahoo Finance. He's a Speaker, Founder and CEO of Common Goal. Using the S.T.E.P. system he is able to lead clients through their trauma. Once they make it through, that is where their limitless potential lies. Nick's been featured in Brainz Media, Swaay and Authority Magazine. At 14, Nick suffered a life-threatening snowboarding accident. His parents were told that he'd never walk, talk or eat again on his own again. He made a personal goal that he would not walk but run out of the hospital. He unknowingly used a system to do just that and less than 60 days later he ran out of the hospital. Nick got started in the real estate industry at an early age. Most notably, he was knocking on pre-foreclosure doors at 16, doing 50+ doors a day. This experience not only shaped his career but it also was a part of his recovery. Going door to door, helping people out of their unfortunate situation. Ways to connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickprefontaine/ https://www.facebook.com/nick.prefontaine.7/ www.NickPrefontaine.com/step About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 You are listening, once again, to an episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet, and today we get to really deal with the unexpected, as I tell people oftentimes about the podcast. Sometimes we do get to talk about inclusion, and we do that before we talk about diversity, because diversity never includes disabilities. But mostly what we get to talk about is the unexpected, which is anything that doesn't have to do with inclusion or diversity. So mostly we get to do the unexpected today, whatever that may mean. Our guest is Nick Prefontaine, Nick, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here all the way back in Rhode Island, so we have to yell across the country to reach each other, huh?   Nick Prefontaine ** 02:05 Absolutely. Michael, however, I've been, I've been looking forward to this for for a few weeks now. So looking forward to jumping in with you. Me too. I'm really looking forward to it, and   Michael Hingson ** 02:16 I know we do get to do some unexpected, really neat story things and so on. But why don't we start tell us about the early Nick growing up. And I know your story integrates into that at some point, but tell us. Tell us about the early Nick. You're, you're setting your set me right up. I try right up. So   Speaker 1 ** 02:35 I, um, alright, so I was at, I was actually at Ski Club with my friends are on the way, we all got released a little bit early. So it was super exciting, as I'm sure you can imagine, or your listeners can imagine, when you're in eighth grade, you get released a little bit early. It's always a big deal. It's always a big thing. So whenever we add Ski Club, we always got released a little bit early. So that was exciting to begin with, and then my friends and I all brought our snowboard gear on the bus to get ready so we could get as most the most out of that day as possible, as far as runs, and not waste any time once we got to the mountain to get ready. So we got some mountain the rest of the class migrated inside to get their ski and snowboard attire on. And we were ready. Because we were prepared. We got ready on the bus. We we had to write for the chair lift. And then going up, we noticed that it was very icy, because it had been raining, so people were wiping out everywhere. However, the the chairlift went right over the terrain park where all of the jumps were, and I knew, as soon as I saw it, that I had to go off the biggest jump in the terrain park. I was like, Oh yeah, that's got my name all over it. So   Nick Prefontaine ** 04:00 got to the top, buckled into my snowboard, took a breath of that crisp winter air, and confidently charged towards that jump with all my speed. And then going after the jump, I caught the edge of my snowboard would sue me off balance, and so I was forced to go off the jump, off balance. I've come to learn that at the moment of impact, I had a decision to make, and I got really still, so I'd left my body and I had two choices. Option one,   Speaker 1 ** 04:34 it's going to be really hard, and once you get through it, you'll help. You'll be able to help trauma survivors to thrive with the rest of their lives, or you can move on to the other side. And I chose a really hard path. So once I got to the hospital, the they actually to get me to the hospital, they wanted to bring a helicopter in. However, it.   Speaker 1 ** 05:00 It was too windy, so they had to send in an ambulance. And out of all the paramedics in the the entire county, there was only one who could intubate right in the spot, and I needed that to be able to breathe. And lucky for me, he was one of the paramedics that showed up to the mountain that day,   Speaker 1 ** 05:22 there's, there's. So that's one, one thing, that's one of the things that contributed to why I'm able to talk to you today and still tell this story. The second one was I had a pair of goggles that I wore, so I wasn't although I wasn't wearing a helmet, and I later learned that I wasn't wearing a helmet, which I usually did when I went to this particular mountain, I was wearing a pair of goggles, and the goggles that I wore had a lot of padding in them. So not only did they brace my impact as I continue to roll down the mountain and continue to hit my head. The goggles mysteriously moved with each impact to brace each each individual impact. So that was the first thing that happened, paramedics. The right paramedic out of all the ones in the area. That was the second the third. Once I got to the hospital, I was I was out, I was toast.   Speaker 1 ** 06:26 The doctors said that I would have been in a coma for seven to 10 days at a minimum, just based on the impact alone. However, Michael, I had swelling in my brain, and the doctors were worried that if I woke up and panicked, the swelling would increase and I would have died, so they had to induce me into a coma. And very early on, when I was resting in the intensive care unit, my parents were the only ones, my immediate family, who were allowed in that room. And the doctors came right in front of me, no fault of their own. They were just doing their job, but they   Speaker 1 ** 07:11 they came into my room to share the prognosis. And as I'm sure you can imagine, it was not so positive, not so positive, not so positive. Each time they will come into my room where I was in a coma. I was out, albeit, but I was in a coma. So they went to share this with my parents. And right as they started talking, my mom stopped them, and she said, No, no, not in front of him, because she understood that even though I was in a coma, I wasn't conscious, I was still taking in information, albeit subconsciously or unconsciously. I always confuse those two. Still to this day, I always confuse those two, however, because my mom stopped the doctors from sharing that news in front of me, made them step outside the room. Once they got outside the room, that's where they shared with my parents that look. He's been in a snowboarding accident, and   Speaker 1 ** 08:17 he's in a coma. Even if he comes out of his coma, there's a good chance that he's probably not going to be able to walk, talk or eat on his own again. And because my mom stopped the doctors and didn't let that information get through to me in any way, what it allowed me to do was just get up every day, figuratively and literally, and treat it like any of the situation.   Speaker 1 ** 08:47 So a month I was in the in the coma, partially induced coma, for three weeks. I really don't remember a month, because it was a partially induced coma,   Nick Prefontaine ** 08:58 as I said.   Speaker 1 ** 09:01 So a month after my accident, those are where my kind of my synapses and my my brain started firing. So I those are where my first memories start. And initially, I was transported to the third floor of the rehab hospital in Boston, and that's where I began my journey. The third floor was reserved for the most critical of cases, and that was me at that point. I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, I couldn't feed my I couldn't do anything, couldn't feed myself, couldn't do anything, and the only thing that I could do was sit up in bed for eight minutes at a time, supported by three nurses, and even then, I was sweating profusely, like I had just ran a marathon. So it was definitely a long.   Speaker 1 ** 10:00 Ahead of me, and I had to, I had to build up my strength slowly, slowly but surely. And it was right around this time that I started,   Speaker 1 ** 10:13 although we're Yeah, it was unknowingly that I started to utilize a system, and that's the same system that I teach to this day   Speaker 1 ** 10:27 in my in my keynote talks for brain injury associations, and also working one on one with individuals that are going through trauma, that's the step system. So Michael, Step is an acronym. It stands for support. Make sure that you have the support of your family and friends right from the beginning, and this is going to have you falling back on relationships that you built prior to your setback. T is trust, trust that once you take your first step, your next step is always going to be available to you. And this this also is about trusting that voice that we all have inside, inside of ourselves. Call it what you want, God, the universe, your inner voice. We all have that voice, but so many of us don't listen to it. So it was very early on my recovery, when I was transported to that rehab hospital in Boston, that I started to listen to that inner voice. So this was before I could talk. I was still unable to talk. I was in a wheelchair. I couldn't walk and I overheard my parents talking and conferring with the doctors, and they would meet them every week to say, all right. So they would, for instance, they would say to the doctors, what do we have to do this week to make sure Nick makes a full recovery? I heard in the back of my head, no, you're going to run out of the hospital. So then running out of the hospital became our common goal and what we were shooting for.   Speaker 1 ** 12:14 So I always like to illustrate that point, because that's that goes right along with trust. You have to get to trust that voice, that that you have inside of you, within support. If I could take a step back within support,   Speaker 1 ** 12:31 it's important. One of the main things that I talk about in step the ebook, which, at the end, I'll give your listeners a way they can download the whole step system, step the eBook for free. One of the things I talk about in there is within support, is that you have to make sure you have an advocate with you at all times. That advocate for me during the day doesn't have to be   Speaker 1 ** 12:59 however, for me, it was my parents. So my mom would be with me every day, going to every therapy and doctor's appointment with me. She also had her parents, who would join, joined her several days a week to help, help break it up. Then at night, when,   Speaker 1 ** 13:21 when it was time at night, my mom would switch off with my dad, and my dad would come in and spend nights at me.   Speaker 1 ** 13:30 The night said he couldn't be there because he had to travel for work and everything. The night said he couldn't be there. I would have an uncle, a grandfather or someone come and spend the night with me as well. So this was so important, because I had an advocate with me at all times to really, really it, it helped things in that. And I said, this is going back, but it's really not going back because it it flows right into energy. So maintaining our E is energy. Maintaining our energy allows our body's natural ability to be able to heal itself. Medication has the potential to get in the way of that. So I needed a lot of drugs and medication to be pumped into me, rightfully so, to help keep me alive, modern medicine saved my life. However, after my accident, I had to make sure that I wasn't just constantly the doctors or the nurses or the hospital staff wasn't constantly medicating me and Michael. This also comes right around the time that it was very early on my recovery, a month after my accident.   Speaker 1 ** 14:48 I always like to share this story, because I was so as I said, my my dad or my grandfather. I think it was my grandfather in this case, was spent.   Speaker 1 ** 15:00 In the night with me, and this was before I could talk. So I got up in the middle of night and I had to go the bathroom. So I tried to   Speaker 1 ** 15:10 call his name and get his attention, wake him up. Well, he wouldn't wake up. So I managed to put the hospital bed down and hobble to the bathroom, use the bathroom and then make it back into bed. Nothing happened. However, the hospital staff found out the next day, and they freaked out. They're like, we can't have this liability. He can't be doing this. And what we're going to do before bedtime, we're going to give him this many cc's of this medication, that many cc's of this other medication, and that should calm him down for bedtime, so that he's able to sleep and we don't have this happen again. And my mom said to them, No, you're not just ask him not to do that again. So they asked me not to do that, and I made sure not to do it again, and I didn't have any problem. However, if I didn't have an advocate with me at all times the hospital, just to make their jobs easier, I'm not, I'm not gonna suck in on here, they would've, they would've just medicated me, yeah.   Nick Prefontaine ** 16:22 So   Speaker 1 ** 16:24 with that, Michael, I will take it. So if you have any questions about that,   Michael Hingson ** 16:28 well, so you have support, trust, energy, and what's the P?   Speaker 1 ** 16:34 The P, I'm glad you asked. Is persistence, okay, so persistence, once you take your first step, keep getting up every day and take your next step, no matter how small. By continuing to move forward every day, you are building an unstoppable momentum, right? And they were long days. They were long days for me in the inpatient rehab in the rehab hospital in Boston, I would get up. I would usually, especially in the beginning, need help. Physical therapists would have to teach me how to shower again.   Speaker 1 ** 17:12 If you can picture that I had to, I had to learn like something as simple as the water comes before the soap. Like I when I say I had to relearn everything. I truly mean everything. I have no memory how to how to do anything. Yeah, so I would have that. Then I would have, I would get breakfast, and then have my first sessions of physical occupational and speech therapy, and after which we broke for lunch. And it's really interesting, because it was at one of these lunches in between my therapies   Nick Prefontaine ** 17:48 that I had a moment.   Speaker 1 ** 17:51 This is kind of the only moment that I can point to where   Nick Prefontaine ** 17:57 I had any doubt,   Speaker 1 ** 18:01 and I always like to illustrate this, because we all have doubts we're human, Me and Me included in that. So I was in a wheelchair, and I had my lunch in front of me, and after I finished lunch, I was just looking over my situation in the wheelchair and everything. And I turned to my mom and I said,   Nick Prefontaine ** 18:26 Am I ever going to be able to walk again?   Speaker 1 ** 18:29 And she goes, of course, you are. That's what we're doing here. So you can get everything back and we can go home.   Speaker 1 ** 18:35 So what this allowed me to do is one have like, have the confidence that, oh, okay, all right, good. It was, it was like a lapse for me, yeah, and it just allowed me to to keep going and keep taking that next step. So let's go back to the original injury. So the injury for you, did you have broken bones or anything, or was it primarily just a brain injury? Yeah, I actually joke about this, because people say, Oh, my God, you must have had a broken arm, broken leg. I drank a lot of milk.   Nick Prefontaine ** 19:10 I love cereal at the time,   Speaker 1 ** 19:13 so I didn't have any broken bones. I just had a traumatic brain. Traumatic brain injury, right? So when you essentially went out of your body, you you realize you had two choices. Whereas Was anyone talking to you? Did you hear a voice that helped you realize you had one of two choices to make? Or, how did that what happened? So that's actually, I'm glad you asked that question, because that's actually something that I wasn't conscious of. I didn't I didn't know in the moment, and I didn't even know that years into the future. It was only within the last few years that I've been working one on one with one of my coaches. I have several coaches, but one of my coaches, I really.   20:00 Really,   Speaker 1 ** 20:01 I really term her, or I describe her as an energy coach.   Speaker 1 ** 20:07 She really helps me get quiet and work through things, whatever I'm dealing with. That was one of the things when we were going deep within that we were able to uncover, because she reflects back to me what she's picking up in my field. So that's one of the things that we're able to uncover. I don't have a conscious memory on that, but joy was the one that was able to reflect that back to me,   Speaker 1 ** 20:39 that that's what happened. So I don't have a conscious memory of that. However, it came back to me that   20:47 that's what happened.   Speaker 1 ** 20:50 So as you were recovering, Did Did you have a voice inside you that was talking with you, that you communicated with? Did you have discussions, or that, did a voice direct you? Or what? Other than that voice in the back of my head, that it was a pretty strong voice at the time, it was knowing you're going to run out of the hospital, that that was really my that was really my guiding force throughout my my recovery,   Speaker 1 ** 21:20 really what I was working towards every day, which it was why it was part of my motivation for getting up every day, doing that, doing the physical occupational speech, then having lunch, and then I didn't finish that thought I actually, after lunch, went back to therapy. I had double session. So I had again, physical occupational and speech therapy. And then even after that, I would be doing extra weights, extra exercises and routines that were going to help me get to my common goal, which was running out of the hospital. And we, when I say, We myself and my parents made sure that everyone, my therapist, nurses, doctors, they all knew my goal, which was to run out of the hospital. So we asked them, Is there any what are the extra exercises that Nick can be doing that that's going to get him to his common goal, of running out of the hospital faster. So if you, if you fast forward a little bit. Michael, I was, I was in my conscious memories is I was in inpatient rehab, in the rehab hospital for a little less than 60 days, and a little less than 60 days, I realized my common goal, which was running out of the hospital. And after running out of the hospital, it wasn't like my work was done. I had to continue to go to outpatient therapy for physical, occupational and speech therapy, albeit not double sessions, but I had to do that physical occupational speech therapy five days a week, along with being tutored all summer long in order to continue on to high school with the rest of my classmates. And are you able? Yeah, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say the looking back on it, it's, it's a little surreal, but   Speaker 1 ** 23:28 it was only 18 months after finishing my rehab, recovering from my snowboarding accident and being in a coma for three weeks and having to learn how to walk, talk and meet again that I got my start in real estate, and that was because I picked up a book off of my dad's shelf in his library that was Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kawasaki. Now I grew up. I grew up my family. I grew up in a family real estate. Like, like a real estate family. My dad was a builder when I was younger, then he was in a realtor, then an investor, and then, like all, all throughout my life, he was always in real estate, always doing something. So I picked up that book   Speaker 1 ** 24:18 in a summer, only 18 months after I finished my outpatient rehab, and at the time, he had a real estate he had a real estate investment company, and   Speaker 1 ** 24:31 I approached him and I said, All right, I want to, I want to get like, I want to help. I want to, like, get started on this book. It really has me thinking so was right around this time that when I approached him, it was right before I got my driver's license, right as I was getting my driver's license. So   Speaker 1 ** 24:52 right around that time, they were playing with the idea of having bird dogs go and knock on Pre Foreclosure doors or.   Speaker 1 ** 25:00 Or in other words, homeowners that have received the notice of default letter from the bank, meaning that they have missed a few payments all the way up to, I mean, 10 or 12 payments, and the bank still hadn't foreclosed on the home.   Speaker 1 ** 25:15 So I would get in the beginning. When I first started this, I had no formal training. They they just said, Hey, here you go to this website to get to find out where these are.   25:29 Then   Speaker 1 ** 25:32 you knock on the door and you say this script. Then if no one's home, you leave this letter so that that was pretty much the only the direction that I got. So I had to go to school during the week because I was only 16.   Speaker 1 ** 25:50 Unfortunately, I would, I would have liked to be working all the time, but I had, but I had to go to school. So the only times that I had to do this was on the weekends. And I would pick one day per week, either a weekend or a holiday, and I would go and knock on these doors. And in the beginning, like I said, I got, I received no training, so I just got, I had a script, and I'll leave behind the leave. And I would try to set up meetings for our investor to meet with them about the following week about potentially buying their home.   Speaker 1 ** 26:27 However, in the beginning, I didn't see a lot of success. I got a lot of doors, as you can imagine, slammed in my face because I had no strategy, no tact whatsoever. I would basically rush up to the door and say, Hey, hi. I'm Nick Prefontaine. With Prefontaine, I forgetting what the company was called at the time. I'm here to help you out of your unfortunate situation. And as you can imagine, I get a lot of doors slammed in my face,   Speaker 1 ** 26:58 and rejection is not a bad thing. I was just able to learn from that. So then, shortly after starting my dad sent my cousin Mike and I out to California to shadow the number one person in the country that was having success for these Notice of Default doors, door knocking these people, and once I saw him and how his strategy, how much nuance and like, how scripted every part of his routine was. I was like, oh my god, light bulb went off. Um, because he was, like, going up, knocking on the door, doing a light, friendly knock, like just a neighbor from down the road. Then he would take a few steps back. They answer the door. Say, Hey, not sure I have the right address. Can you confirm something for me? And you would show them their clip his clipboard. And once they saw their name on the list, they would light up and just tell him what happened, what they were doing to fix this situation, or let's be candid, it was 2000 2006   Speaker 1 ** 28:10 2007 so what they weren't doing about the situation,   Speaker 1 ** 28:15 and it really made things easier. And then he was able to book follow up meetings for the following week. So once I saw that, I instituted that, once I got home, and then I started seeing a lot of success. And in these areas, in these cities where I door knock during high school, we own properties for years, even after I graduated high school. And then after I got out of high school, I started studying to get my get my real estate license, and I got my real estate license, a pretty great time to get your real estate license. March of 2008 Mm, hmm. So anyone, anyone that was around during that time. Knows that the financial markets and everything was was kind of coming down during that time and crashing. And it was, it was interesting. Michael, The first pre licensing course that I went to, that I went to take, or the first time, rather, I'm sorry that I went to take my test to get my real estate license. There were because I didn't pass on the first time. It took me a few times, but so the first time I went, there's probably 25 people in the room with me taking the test. The second time I went, only a few weeks later,   Nick Prefontaine ** 29:42 there there was really, like 10,   Speaker 1 ** 29:46 maybe closer to 15. And the third time that I went and took it, because it took me three times to pass my real estate licensing test, they i.   Nick Prefontaine ** 30:00 Yeah, there was one other person   Speaker 1 ** 30:03 in the room. Yeah, there was one other person in the room. So as you can imagine, it was a sign of the times, for sure. And   Speaker 1 ** 30:12 I was a, I was a realtor for a full, full time realtor, helping buyers and sellers for six years, like that was my primary and only source of income. Then in 2014   Speaker 1 ** 30:28 my dad approached me about he was an investor, and he was buying homes like acquiring homes creatively so without signing personally for loans or without using big investor down payments or any of his money. So he is acquiring them creatively,   Speaker 1 ** 30:51 just to name a few, with like with owner financing. So buy if they didn't have any debt on the property, you would buy the home with owner financing and make principal only payments. A second way that he was acquiring them was   Speaker 1 ** 31:10 you would close on them subject to their existing loan. And I'm just trying to keep it high level, keep it basic. The third way is, if there was a loan, like, for instance, if there was a loan in place,   Speaker 1 ** 31:23 he would buy it with a just a lease purchase agreement. And in all cases, taking over responsibility for maintenance, repair and upkeep over the duration of his agreement. And they were usually anywhere from three to five years. And then once he got that, he came to me and said, Hey, would you be able to help me with the marketing of these properties? Because I'm getting all these deals, I'm getting all these properties under contract, and I can't do two things at once, so I can't continue to get properties and market the property. So will you be able to help me with the marketing of the properties? And I was reluctant at first, but I finally came around the idea that I could help him, right alongside being my business as being a realtor and marketing all the properties turned into, oh, shoot, now we need help with handling all the buyer inquiries and the interest that's being generated off this marketing. Will you be able to help me with, with the with the buyers, and fielding all the buyer calls and inquiries and everything like that. So then, over the course of 13 months, my income shifted where I was maybe making five or 10% with him as an investor, and 90% of my income was coming as a realtor. Over 13 months, because of the evolution of the business, my income shifted where it didn't even make sense for me to keep my license, and in January 2016 after I received my last commission check, I let my real estate license go and joined him full time as an investor   Speaker 1 ** 33:19 and working one on one with the buyers   Speaker 1 ** 33:23 that has morphed into working with not only doing our deals and our properties,   Speaker 1 ** 33:31 it also and capital encapsulates working with associates that we have all over The country to do these same types of creative deals, so buying homes with with low or no money down, and then exiting them on a rent to own agreement.   Speaker 1 ** 33:53 So that's, that's what's really developed in the process. And it's pretty exciting. And then if I could, if I could take a step back, because   Speaker 1 ** 34:04 during that time frame, so back, if you go back to 2012 Michael, I developed, I developed an issue with my voice, and I couldn't really figure out what was going on. And I would go to all the I went to my, my, my, what is it called primary care physician, and he checked me out, evaluated me, did a full physical on me. He's like, No, I don't see anything wrong. You're fine. And I was like, something's not right. So I kept looking and I kept being referred. I went to analogous, kept being referred to these different doctors, but a year after looking for answers, I was finally referred to   Speaker 1 ** 34:49 a voice specialist in Boston at Mass, eye and ear. His name was Dr song, and there are only 35 of these voice.   Speaker 1 ** 35:00 Specialists in the country or on the continent. I was, I was confused the two, but, but I think in the country, there are only 35 of these boys specialists. And after looking for almost a year for an answer, and no one able to give me an answer, I was, I was so blown away that immediately Dr song walked in into the room, heard me speak, and right away, not only goes, oh that,   Speaker 1 ** 35:31 yeah, we deal with it all the time. Go to the front desk and get scheduled for a botox injection in a couple weeks, and if there was a camera on me, Michael, my mouth was like on the on the floor. I was absolutely blown away, because here I was. I had all this anxiety built up, and I was, I don't know, I don't like that word. I had all this   Nick Prefontaine ** 35:57 worry,   Speaker 1 ** 35:59 not worry. It was, I'm looking, I'm searching, I'm looking for the word. It's anxiety. I just don't love that word. I don't know it was. I had all this like pent up. I was just looking everywhere, and I couldn't get an answer. So it could be anxiety, I'm not sure, or concern, but concern, yeah, so I, I was just, like, melted I, like, melted off me when he did that, because   Speaker 1 ** 36:30 it really, it put me so at ease. And so what was the issue? Oh, it was a I had, I had some, I had a lot of tension in my throat. It was, it was basically like, it was hard to get the words out, so that's how I would sound. But to me, I felt fine inside, so I was like, Oh, I don't get why my voice is sounding like that. So what did the Botox do? Well, what it did. I actually can relate this back to my accident, because during my recovery from my accident and having to learn how to talk again, I knew what I wanted to say up here, it was clear, Isabelle up here,   Speaker 1 ** 37:13 then I just couldn't get the words out, like they just couldn't come whereas then this was a little bit different. Same thing, I knew what I wanted to say. It was clear in my head. However, just coming out, I just couldn't get the words out. And what it was was   Nick Prefontaine ** 37:36 they don't know what. He didn't want to label it.   Speaker 1 ** 37:40 He said he doesn't want to put a label on it, because in all my research and looking for answers and everything, I really resonated with something in a community, a group called   Speaker 1 ** 37:56 just for, it's, um, I'm sorry, dysphonia International. And at the time, they were called National spasmodic dysphonia association. So spasmodic dysphonia is like it basically, it's just a voice issue.   Speaker 1 ** 38:15 So now that it's now that it's worked its way out of my system, I don't even know if it's if it's that, or if it's a combination of that with muscle tension, because for me, now, it's out of my system. As as you can tell here, I've, I've been doing quite a bit of talking, and there, there's no issue. So I don't, I fortunately don't have an issue with my voice anymore,   Michael Hingson ** 38:44 and the last Botox injection I had to receive was February 13 of 2020, okay, so that's been over four years, which is pretty cool. Yeah, let me ask you this question. So you had clearly a very serious injury.   Michael Hingson ** 39:05 How did that injury affect you in terms of what you do and the commitment to do what you do and how you feel about the world? Oh, I love the question, the   Nick Prefontaine ** 39:22 so there has always been,   Speaker 1 ** 39:26 there has always been this voice in in the back of my head. So after I got out of after I ran out of the hospital and went through all my outpatient rehab, and really, once I finished and graduated school, graduated high school,   Speaker 1 ** 39:43 I've always kind of had this voice in the back of my head that's been telling me that whatever I'm being successful in, whether it's sales, real estate, anything   Speaker 1 ** 39:55 that voice has always been saying, Yeah, that's great, but what you really.   Speaker 1 ** 40:00 Need to be doing is helping individuals through their trauma and to be able to thrive with the rest of their lives. And I've really always   Speaker 1 ** 40:14 kind of unknowingly unconsciously gravitated towards people that have had a setback or a life challenge, and it's been for the fact that whenever something happens, whether it's an accident or a sudden illness or a sudden health thing, that that sets people back. Anyone who knows me and my story, they always say, Oh, if you talk to Nick, you have to talk to Nick. And I've always helped them through their trauma, their life challenge or trauma, and help them get through and then thrive with the rest of their lives. And I've throughout the years, Michael, I've always, I've always unknowingly, unconsciously share this step system with them to help them realize just that to get through their trauma and thrive with the rest of their lives. It wasn't, it wasn't until,   Speaker 1 ** 41:15 wasn't until a little bit late more recently, so was back in September of 2019   Speaker 1 ** 41:23 that someone approached me, and I've I've been fortunate. I've had the ability, because of our our real estate coaching and mentoring business, that I have with my family, with my dad and my brother in law, that I've always had the opportunity to do a little speaking do tell my story from stage at our events. And we've been having events since 2016   Speaker 1 ** 41:55 so I've always, I've always been blessed where I've I've at least had that opportunity to get up and share my story.   Nick Prefontaine ** 42:04 However, that's   Nick Prefontaine ** 42:07 that's only been 1515,   Speaker 1 ** 42:10 maybe 20. Maybe the Max would be 25   Speaker 1 ** 42:15 minutes that I've been able to share my story. Then someone who saw me speak at our at our event, our qls event. We call it the qls Quantum Leap systems event   Speaker 1 ** 42:29 in September. We have another one coming up here in September, but someone that saw me speak in 2019 at at that approach me,   Nick Prefontaine ** 42:40 and she said,   Speaker 1 ** 42:43 I love your story. Love the love the way that you you shared it. If you're ever looking to fine tune your message and bring it to another level so you're able to impact and affect the most amount of people possible, let me know, and I can introduce you to a few mentors and coaches and speaker bureaus and help you get started.   Speaker 1 ** 43:13 She made it clear she wasn't, wasn't trying to steal me away from my dad or our family business. But if I ever, if I ever wanted to explore that. So at the time, I, at the time, I was still dealing going through the final throws of my voice issue, as I said, the last treatment that I got was February 13 of 2020,   Speaker 1 ** 43:38 and I still wasn't ready. I was still I still had a few more hurdles to go through, a few more injections to get and I wasn't ready. However, I always held on to her card, and   Speaker 1 ** 43:55 I finally reached out to her in May of 2021, so one.   Speaker 1 ** 44:03 Then I set a book. I said, Art, I'm ready.   Speaker 1 ** 44:07 Who should I talk to? How do I get started about that offer that you offer me 18 months ago, and   Speaker 1 ** 44:16 she introduced me to Tricia, who has Tricia Brooke, who's become a friend and mentor of mine, and ever since she made that introduction and I had that first call with Tricia three years ago, a little over three years ago, there has been no voice in the back of my head. Michael, so what that's evidence of to me is that I'm doing exactly what I was put on this shirt to do well. And so do you still do real estate, or are you now doing more coaching and so on and speaking full time? So I I'm still involved in our I have the the good fortune.   Speaker 1 ** 45:00 In, I have the ability to do both. So I'm still doing real estate and also, and this is interesting about the the time frame not to say   Speaker 1 ** 45:11 kind of Whoa, look at me really out. This is just to   Nick Prefontaine ** 45:17 share the   Speaker 1 ** 45:21 kind of the importance and how far a mentor or a coach can take you. That's why I like to share this story. So   Speaker 1 ** 45:31 as I said, I only spoke for maybe 1520 maybe 25 minutes max, before I before I met Trisha and now I give keynotes to brain injury associations and other organizations that support people that are going through trauma, whether it's a trauma life challenge or otherwise. I give 4550 and 60 minute keynotes. Whereas before her, I would, I was only speaking for 1520, 25 minutes max. So   Speaker 1 ** 46:09 I, I always like to share that, because it just drives a point home the importance of a mentor,   Michael Hingson ** 46:16 right? Well, so you, you teach the step system. How do you do that? What? What is the process to teach that? Because it seems very intellectual and so on. But so, how do you teach step?   Speaker 1 ** 46:31 So step is really, it's about applying the step system. So within, within step, there's, a bunch of different bullet points, if you will, about like one of those. One of those for support is make sure that you have your advocate right from the beginning. And this doesn't, this doesn't necessarily have to be a family member. That's why people always hear the word family and they try to latch on to that. It can be anyone, it can be a neighbor, it can be a co worker that's always been there, always been around and looking, looking to help you out. But it has to be someone who will be an advocate, yeah, exactly right, someone, someone who's around, always, always looking to help you. So that's one of the things I talk about within step and it's really as far as the step system. It's really helping them to apply the step system to their life and their situation. Now I do have, I do have one thing which is in addition now the ebook step, which is going to teach you, I'll give you at the end step, the ebook gonna teach you all about support, trust, energy and persistence. That's free, and that's really a great way to take take your first step today. Then after you go through that, if you're looking to kind of bring it to another level, I have step the video course, and that's really that's only $37   Speaker 1 ** 48:13 and what that entails is for each Letter,   Speaker 1 ** 48:18 so support, trust, energy and persistence for each letter. Uh, there's a coaching video from me that's going to walk you through how you go about applying the step system to your life, your setback, your trauma, your situation, and allow you to move forward. Each letter also comes with a workbook and coaching videos and emails from me, which is going to have you have me continually in your corner. So that's the that's really the steps. It's the free,   Nick Prefontaine ** 48:59 no pun intended.   Speaker 1 ** 49:02 It's that that's the that's kind of the process is the ebook, then step the video series, which is only $37   Speaker 1 ** 49:14 then after you go through that, then we can, if you're still interested in working together, we can jump on the phone to kind of uncover and discuss what it would be like working together, one on one. And I usually do one on one clients for either three or six months, depending on your situation. You started something called common goal. Tell us about that.   Speaker 1 ** 49:40 Common goal is alright. So really, everything that   Nick Prefontaine ** 49:47 I've been able to kind of uncover   Speaker 1 ** 49:51 from my recovery, and that includes the step system,   Speaker 1 ** 49:56 was because of my mentor, Tricia Paul.   Speaker 1 ** 50:00 Pulling it out of me when we were 21 together. So if I can take you back, I know, I know I talked about since I had that first initial call with Trisha, I told you that there's been no voice in the back of my head. Well how that call went. I shared my goals with her and the impact that I was looking to make with her. And I said, Do you think that's possible? And she said, absolutely. I said, Okay, what do you recommend? She said that I recommend the speaker salon, which is and I said, What's the speaker salon? She said, Well, you commute to New York City for six weeks in a row. So for five weeks you get to work on your eight to 10 minute talk, and then on the on the sixth week, you perform it in front of influencers, decision makers, event organizers, TEDx organizers, people who can book you to speak,   Speaker 1 ** 51:05 so that that's what I think. That's what she told me she thought I should do. I said, All right, well, what? What is that? And she said, that's 25,000   Speaker 1 ** 51:13 i i said, yeah, yes, absolutely that. And I made the commitment right there and that I wanted to do that, because I saw   Speaker 1 ** 51:24 it was a it was a wholehearted yes for me, and it was a wholehearted yes because I knew it was a part of my path, part of my calling, to be able to tell my story From stage in front of individuals, and also help individuals that are going through trauma. So I said, Yes, did that? Completed that. Then during the speaker song, Michael, she approached me   Speaker 1 ** 51:53 and said that she works one on one with individuals to help them build out their speaker platform,   Speaker 1 ** 52:02 and I didn't I didn't even know what that was. I didn't even know what a speaker platform was. I didn't even know what that meant. However, from my experience working with her for several weeks in the speaker salon, I just knew this was what I wanted, and what I wanted was to continue to   Speaker 1 ** 52:25 get her brain and her thoughts on on myself and and   Speaker 1 ** 52:33 my situation, so I can impact and and affect individuals. So I said, Yes. She said, that's 75,000   Speaker 1 ** 52:43 I said, Okay, well, you're gonna have to give me a week to kind of figure out where I'm gonna where I'm gonna get the money for that. So I didn't have 75,000 underneath my mattress. So what I did, I went and applied for financing, and six days later, I ended up sending her the funds. She was the one that helped me to launch common goal. So in January of 2022, working one on one with her,   Speaker 1 ** 53:16 was a six or seven month contract that was our one on one, more together. I would have a call with her once every two weeks, two or three weeks, and she was the one that really helped me launch common goal and uncovered the step system. Michael, as I was saying, she pulled it out at me to the point where she was asking me, all right, so   Speaker 1 ** 53:43 you got in the snowboarding accident, and then you ran out of the hospital. How'd you do it?   Speaker 1 ** 53:50 I said, I don't know. I just I did it. I got up every day and just kept working every day until I got to where I wanted to go. And she goes,   Michael Hingson ** 53:59 No, not good enough. Yeah, I agree with her,   Speaker 1 ** 54:04 how'd you do it? So she kept asking me, I think it went seven or eight layers deep. Her asking me, how did I do it to a point, Michael, where I was so frustrated, I was like, I don't know. Stop asking me that question, and   Speaker 1 ** 54:22 what came out of that, though, was the step system.   Speaker 1 ** 54:27 So the step system is what I teach to this day. And she also helped me to write several keynote talks, which, as I, as I share with you I'm now delivering for brain injury associations and other associations that support individuals that are going through trauma. So with, I'm sorry, go ahead.   Speaker 1 ** 54:52 I was just going to say without, without that introduction, uh, three years ago.   54:59 Um.   Speaker 1 ** 55:00 From Sharon. Sharon spanne was the one that introduced me to Trisha.   Speaker 1 ** 55:06 I wouldn't be or, who knows how long it would have take me, or if I be where I am today. So I'm very fortunate of that. So what is common goal?   Michael Hingson ** 55:19 Is it an organization. Is it? You know what? What is it?   Speaker 1 ** 55:23 Yeah, it. It's my company. So we support individuals who are going through trauma to thrive with the rest of their lives, very simply put. And as I said, we're doing, I'm doing a lot of speaking at brain injury associations and other associations that are supporting individuals that are going through trauma, sharing the step system, spreading the message, and also then that what comes out of that is working one on one, with   Michael Hingson ** 55:56 with individuals. Got it to thrive with the rest of their lives. Are you able to do that virtually, or is it only in person? Or how does that work?   Speaker 1 ** 56:08 That's a great question. So there is nothing like being in person, sure,   Speaker 1 ** 56:15 and dealing with someone one on one. However, the nature of the world, you can't you can't be there in person and flying around just to meet with people one on one. So it is something that that can be done virtually.   Speaker 1 ** 56:32 However, interspersed in there, I love there to be a person, if at all possible, a personal touch. That's always my my preference. And if there's some way we're meeting, we're either we meet up somewhere, there's some way that we can meet face to face and really develop that personal connection, that's cool. So   Michael Hingson ** 56:57 it, and I agree, it's always nice to be able to do things in person, it's so much better. But the the value of the world today, if you're able to do it, is to doing things virtually. Gives you the potential to to teach   Michael Hingson ** 57:14 to a wider, I don't want to say audience, because I think a lot of the teaching is probably one on one, but to a wider   Michael Hingson ** 57:22 group of people, but it's really exciting that you're you're doing it, and none of it would have happened if you hadn't gone through the injury. And I wonder if it would have happened if you had had a helmet on back at the injury.   Nick Prefontaine ** 57:41 This is always,   Nick Prefontaine ** 57:43 this is not a,   Speaker 1 ** 57:45 what should we call it? This isn't something I talk about all the time. However, what the doctor said, obviously,   Speaker 1 ** 57:55 a helmet versus not a helmet, like a helmet, you always, you always say, Yeah, helmets better for you. However,   Speaker 1 ** 58:02 the doctors said that because of the force with which my head hit the ice, that they don't, they don't even know how much difference a helmet would have made, but the goggles made a big difference. It would have, yeah, absolutely, it would have, it would have split right their opinion. I mean, who knows? Like, I don't know. We don't know. However, if I were to have the choice, I, I, I'd like a helmet,   Speaker 1 ** 58:35 as opposed to not everyone. So I'm a, I'm a huge advocate of helmets, like helmet safety. I just that's,   Speaker 1 ** 58:43 that's not something I talk about little known fact. So what   Michael Hingson ** 58:49 was it like? I'll ask this, and we've been doing this a while, but what was it like running out of the hospital? It was,   Speaker 1 ** 58:59 I can go right back to that day. Mm, hmm, I bet you can. So it was April, April 24 2003   Speaker 1 ** 59:08 and on that day I went to, I went, there was a, there was a pizza, there was a there was a pizza shop right next door to the hospital. So we walked. I had several goals. So running out of the hospital was the main goal. However, the food goal, like so I could swallow, like, swallow, right? Was a coke and a grinder. There you go, Coke because it was a soda and the bubbles irritate your throat, so it's not something you think about. However,   Speaker 1 ** 59:47 it wasn't like the soda was free flowing in the hospital. So that was always a goal of mine, a coke in a grinder for those non New Englanders out there. I.   Nick Prefontaine ** 1:00:00 Was a sandwich,   Speaker 1 ** 1:00:03 yeah, like, like, a turkey, a turkey sandwich. So that was always my   Nick Prefontaine ** 1:00:08 that was always my goal. I actually think it might have been a meatball, but,   Speaker 1 ** 1:00:13 well, I digress. I digress. So I remember that day we I walked over next door to the hospital with my physical therapist and my mom, and I can really, I can see the pizza shop, like walking in the door and getting that aroma and ordering and just realizing my goal. And then after that, I ran. After I came out, we came out for having lunch. I ran across the parking lot diagonally, and I raised my physical therapist, who was running backwards. I raced her. I don't even remember who won, but as you can see, that's a that's a really vivid memory for me. That was,   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:01 oh, it was amazing. And like, it like I shared, it wasn't, wasn't like my work was done. I had to, you know, continue to work. But that that was a big day for sure. Well, Nick, this has been remarkable in a lot of ways, and definitely inspiring. And clearly, you are an unstoppable person by any standard. And I'm glad that we got to have this connection, and we got to talk about this. And you tell the story, I think it's an important story. I keep thinking about your parents, who were, as you point out, very strong advocates. I had the same situation, because when it was discovered I was blind, my parents were told to send me off to a home, and my parents refused, and it was because of their advocacy that I developed the attitudes that I did about life, and clearly that is very much the same for you, whether it was Your parents or you had a, probably a larger support system in a lot of ways than than I did initially. But still, the bottom line is that you had the advocates, and that is extremely important. And I agree with you that anytime any of us are are different,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:17 or are facing any kind of situation, having advocates is extremely important, and it's always good to find advocates to be part of our lives. Absolutely, absolutely, 100%   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:30 Well, I want to thank you for being here with us. We We did an hour without a lot of difficulty, just just like I said we would, and just like we talked about so I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank everyone for listening. Nick's story is incredible and amazing in so many ways, and clearly unstoppable. So you mentioned the ebook. Tell me about how people can get that. Yeah, absolutely. So what, uh, what we covered here was really just a 10,000 foot view of the step system, um, if they go to or when they go to Nick prefontaine.com,   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:09 forward slash step and spell Prefontaine, if you would. Yeah, sure, I'll spell the whole thing. Okay, hey, it's n, i, c, k, P, R, E, F, O N, T, A, I n, e.com,   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:27 forward slash, step, S, T, E, P,   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:33 they can download the whole step system for free, and In that they're going to learn all about support, trust, energy and persistence. And as I was saying earlier, it's a great first step, and they're going to be able to that will allow them to take that first step today,   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:56 and if they want to then follow up and reach out to you and learn from you and so on. How do they do that?   Speaker 1 ** 1:04:04 They can also, there's a contact, there's a Contact button on the website. Well, right, yeah, right from the website they they should be able to, they should be able to do that, do that, but like or and like I was sharing earlier, the the steps would be to go through, keep saying that,   Speaker 1 ** 1:04:24 okay, would go, would go through step the ebook, then do step the video series, the video course, and then after, after you've gone through those so we're speaking the same language, then we can hop On the phone to determine what our what our work would be like together, one on one. And I'm assuming in the eBook, it also gives the contact information to reach out and go further. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So I'll include Well, super well, Nick.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:55 Thank you very much for being here, and I want to thank all of you who are listening.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:01 Watching, and if you're on YouTube watching, we really appreciate you being here and allowing us to invite you in, to be part of our family, and we want to become part of yours. I would really love it if any of you who would do so would give us a five star rating wherever you're listening to us. We value, we appreciate and value your ratings very highly.   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:23 I'm sure that Nick would love to hear from you, and he is giving you ways to reach out to him. So please do that for me. I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me through email easily. At Michael M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at, accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:41 so Michael h i@accessibe.com   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:43 or go to www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:50 and that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n.com/podcast,   Michael Hingson ** 1:05:55 and you can listen to all of our episodes if you're not listening to us somewhere else. But we would really love your thoughts and your opinions. Nick for you and all of you listening, if you know of anyone else who we ought to have on as a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know. Bring them on. Introduce us. We are always looking for guests, so I really value getting to meet more people, as I love to tell people, if I'm not learning at least as much as anybody else who comes on the podcast, I'm not doing my job well, and I've had the value and the joy of getting to learn from so many people like Nick. So please let us know if you have any guests, we'd love to hear from you.   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:38 So again, Nick, thank you very much. We really appreciate you being here. This has been a lot of fun, and I appreciate your time, and we hope that you'll come back again and visit.   Nick Prefontaine ** 1:06:48 Thanks, Michael, I have a blast, and I can't wait to do it again.   **Michael Hingson ** 1:06:56 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

In April of 2008, several members of various local paranormal investigation groups got together to form Paranormal Boston. This small group, as well as the addition of a few new, talented, carefully-chosen individuals, possess either a strong background in paranormal investigations or they've had their own profound paranormal experience. All are open-minded skeptics who take a scientific approach that goes much deeper than looking for unexplained creaks and shadows (like you see on television).Our group's credibility and professional reputation have led to requests to conduct home and business investigations throughout New England, and we have gained additional recognition via national and local cable television shows, national and local radio shows, local newspapers, trade magazines, books, podcasts and social media.Despite many requests from reality television shows through the years to perform investigations on questionable paranormal cable TV shows, we have made a conscious choice to stay out of the limelight and avoid the reputation that often comes with compromising your values to boost television ratings (and egos).In January of 2018, we changed our name to Paranormal New England to better identify the entire geographical area we have worked in the past, and will continue to work in the future. We are dedicated, and passionate, and here to help our fellow New Englanders should they need us.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-x-zone-radio-tv-show--1078348/support.

President Trump has pardoned and commuted the sentences of people convicted of crimes committed during the Jan. 6 insurrection, making good on a campaign promise and stunning legal experts.

It's another year and another chance to suffer from comparisonitis!! But, worry not, I've got you (or, more accurately, Sara from Between The Lines has got both of us covered today). With everyone celebrating their end-of-year wins and their goals for this upcoming season, quarter, and year, it's a time when we tend to do a little reflection (good and bad).Sara Noel is a Website Copywriter, Marketing Mentor, Unapologetic Squirrel (aka ADHDer), Champion of Single Moms, World's Loudest Noah Kahan Fan, and the most unfiltered business owner on the Internet. She's the proudest F-bomb-dropping New Englander you'll ever meet, the "queen of over-delivering" (according to her students and clients), and she's wicked obsessed with helping business owners learn how to write better website copy.You can find her online here, but you'd be better off just subscribing to her weekly newsletter from the get-go — she shares one marketing tip, once a week, but always includes a good-enough-to-skip-your-responsibilities-to-read story.Website: www.betweenthelinescopy.com Newsletter (free copywriting tips): www.betweenthelinescopy.com/subscribe Okay, so in this episode of The Blogging & SEO Show, we're talking all thing comparisonitis, how to avoid it, how to deal with it, and why you shouldn't let it ruin all the hard work you've put in the past year (because you're fudgin amazing, okay?). Don't forget to listen in next week, too, as we'll be back to our usual Blogging & SEO goodness ;)More Ways to Learn & Connect with Me:Blog: www.thecommamamaco.com/blogInstagram: @‌commamama.coDon't forget to follow and subscribe to the show to be notified when new episodes are available! Go ahead and subscribe to the newsletter and get inbox notifications and access to exclusive deals for my listeners - Get on the list.

New Englanders love the lottery, and it's long been an important source of public funding. But it's not the only option for people's gambling dollars. Boston Fed researcher Riley Sullivan talks about lottery history, policy, and trends.

A Stellar Year: Space Discoveries and Cosmic Wonders of 2024 Matt Robison is joined by astronomy professor John Gianforte from the University of New Hampshire, also known as 'the Sky Guy'. They delve into the most fascinating space-related events of 2024, including the Great North American Eclipse, new moons around Uranus and Neptune, significant finds from the James Webb Space Telescope, and intriguing developments in early universe theories. They also look ahead to future missions like the Europa Clipper and the use of AI in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, highlighting how science fiction is becoming reality. (New Englanders: if you want to see some of these amazing sky sights, come to the UNH Observatory--more information here) 00:00 Introduction to Beyond Politics 02:04 A Big Year for the Sun 02:14 The Great North American Eclipse 05:39 Solar Maximum and Aurora Borealis 13:39 The Parker Solar Probe 16:22 Exploring the Solar System 16:49 The Comet 18:54 The Mysterious Oort Cloud 24:04 The Debate Over Pluto and Planet Nine 29:15 The Mystery of Planet Nine 29:35 New Moons Discovered in Our Solar System 32:35 James Webb Space Telescope's Latest Discoveries 33:48 Formation of Stars and Planets 36:34 Theories on Solar System Formation 39:40 Earliest Galaxies and Black Hole Mergers 47:28 The Ultimate Fate of the Universe 56:11 Science Fiction Becoming Reality

(00:00) Zolak and Beetle discuss the Gillette Stadium Red Seat new amenities that are put in place to bring fans back to the stadium to watch the Patriots. (13:29) The crew notes that the current state of the Patriots makes it hard for New Englanders to be fans of the team. (28:23) Zo and Beetle compare Caleb Williams and Drake Maye and who they would rather have as quarterback. (38:59) The guys end the final hour with Today’s Takeaways.

Send us a textScott speaks with WEEI's Rich Keefe of the Jones and Keefe Show. Rich is a native New Englander who worked for 98.5 The Sports Hub prior to WEEI. He became their midday host in 2024. Keefe's also appeared in pre- and post-game shows for Patriots.com and is a contributor to NBC Sports Boston. A fun episode talking about the state of the current Patriots as well as Rich's career. 

The story after the pandemic started was that people were relocating more. But now, New Englanders just aren't making as many moves, either short- or long-distance. Boston Fed economist Pinghui Wu talks about the trend and what it means.

Jen Collins Moore transports readers to Italy in the Roman Holiday Mysteries, and her short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly and Masthead: The Best New England Crime Stories. She serves on the national board of Sisters in Crime and is the immediate past president of Sisters in Crime Chicagoland, as well as a founding member of the Sleuths and Sidekicks blog. A transplanted New Englander, she lives in Chicago.https://www.jennifercollinsmoore.com/Sleuths and Sidekicks: https://www.sleuthsandsidekicks.com/*****************About SinCSisters in Crime (SinC) was founded in 1986 to promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers. Through advocacy, programming and leadership, SinC empowers and supports all crime writers regardless of genre or place on their career trajectory.www.SistersinCrime.orgInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sincnational/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sincnational.bsky.socialThreads: https://www.threads.net/@sincnationalFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/sistersincrimeTikTok:: https://www.tiktok.com/@sincnationalThe SinC Writers' Podcast is produced by Julian Crocamo https://www.juliancrocamo.com/

GCBC 297 – “Brit explains Red Auerbach to a New Englander” recorded November 1st 2024 Good Cop Moments Bad Cop Moments #FanCopMoments Devil's Advocate Follow the podcast @goodbadwrestle Follow the network @visglobalmedia Follow Graham @mgbgraham Follow Ryan @nishguy Thanks to special guest Eric Freeds for joining us again on super short notice.

What $500K Buys You in Maine: Exploring Your Real Estate OptionsIf you've got $500,000 to spend on a home and are wondering what you can get in Maine, you're in the right place! In this blog post, we'll take you on a tour of what your budget can buy in different parts of Maine. From coastal towns to peaceful country retreats, suburban neighborhoods to quaint New England villages, and even the city life in Portland—there's something for everyone. Let's break it down!The Seaside Dream: Coastal Homes for $500KIf you've always dreamed of living near the ocean, Maine offers some great options for coastal living. In towns like Brunswick, Bath, and South Portland, $500K can get you a charming home just a few miles from the beach. You might not be beachfront, but you'll still be able to feel that salty sea breeze and enjoy the coastal lifestyle.Expect to find a small 3-bedroom cape-style or ranch home, usually around 1,500 to 2,000 square feet. These homes often come with a cozy backyard—perfect for a small garden—and are likely to need a few cosmetic updates. Plus, you'll likely be within walking distance of some local shops or a spot where you can grab a fresh lobster roll!The Country Retreat: More Space and LandIf you're looking to stretch your dollars and enjoy more space, head inland! Towns like Norway, Oxford, and Windham offer larger homes on bigger plots of land for $500K. Here, you'll find homes that are perfect for those who love peace and quiet, outdoor activities like hiking and fishing, or just having room to breathe.For this price, you can expect a 4-bedroom, 2-bath farmhouse or even a modern log cabin with over 2,500 square feet of living space. You'll typically get 3 to 5 acres of land—plenty of room for a workshop, barn, or garden, with the potential for some stunning views of the nearby mountains or lakes. It's the ideal lifestyle for those looking to escape the hustle and bustle for some tranquility.The Suburban Sweet Spot: Family Homes in Great NeighborhoodsPrefer a suburban lifestyle? In towns like Gorham, Scarborough, and Westbrook, $500K will get you a modern family home. These homes are typically 3- to 4-bedroom colonials or split-levels, built in the 1990s or 2000s, with around 2,000 to 2,400 square feet of living space.In these neighborhoods, you'll find modern kitchens, finished basements, and usually a two-car garage. These are safe, quiet areas with good schools—perfect for families—and they offer easy access to shopping centers, parks, and even a quick 20- to 30-minute drive to Portland for those weekend brewery runs.The Quaint Village Life: Historic Charm for $500KIf you're drawn to the charm of a classic New England village, towns like Freeport, Yarmouth, or Camden are the places to be. For $500K, you can find historic New Englander or Victorian homes converted to condos filled with character, like original hardwood floors, crown moldings, and maybe even a clawfoot tub!These homes are usually between 1,800 and 2,200 square feet, and while they will need some updating, their charm is undeniable. Plus, you'll likely be within walking distance of a bustling Main Street filled with local shops, coffee spots, and maybe even L.L. Bean if you're in Freeport. If you love history and community, village life might be perfect for you.What About Portland?If city living is more your style, you're probably curious about what $500K can get you in Portland, Maine's biggest city. With Portland's growing popularity, it's no surprise that your options might be a bit more limited.For $500K, you're likely looking at a condo or a smaller single-family home in the 1,000- to 1,400-square-foot range. You might score a modern two-bedroom condo with stylish finishes, possibly in a building with amenities like a rooftop deck or parking garage. While you won't have a ton of outdoor space, you'll be right in the middle of the action, with easy access to Portland's vibrant restaurant and brewery scene. And while you might not have waterfront views for this price, you'll be a short walk from the Eastern Promenade, where you can enjoy some killer ocean views and outdoor fun.Final Thoughts: What $500K Can Buy You in MaineWhether you're dreaming of a seaside cottage, a sprawling country estate, a modern suburban home, or a charming village retreat, $500K can get you a variety of beautiful properties in Maine. The real estate market here offers something for everyone—beach lovers, nature enthusiasts, families, and city dwellers alike.If you're ready to start your journey to finding your dream home in Maine, don't hesitate to reach out! As a local Realtor, I'm here to help you navigate the process and find the perfect home that fits your lifestyle and budget. And remember, if you Make Maine Your Home, you don't have to do it alone!

Home Base Nation is Back with its 8th Season and 110th Episode of the show. In this episode Dr. Ron Hirschberg reviews some of the news and updates from Home Base since summer, highlighting the All-Star Forum Honoring Women Service Members and Veterans on 7-26-24 at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway just prior to the 15th Annual Run To Home Base. This powerhouse panel was hosted by former ABC News Chief Health and Medical Correspondent / Emmy Award Winning Journalist, Dr. Jen Ashton. On September 11th, Drs. Sofia Matta and Joe Bonvie launched the 1st Annual Home Base Brain Health Summit which was a big success. Later in September at the Seaport in Boston, the New England Council honored General Jack Hammond as one of the recipients of the esteemed "New Englander of the Year Award."  We had a bittersweet farewell to Chief of TBI Services Dr. Ross Zafonte at Home Base is heading to Missouri as Medical School Dean, and a recent pivotal visit by Senator Elizabeth to Warren Spaulding Rehabiliation Hospital for a Forum on Blast Injury and Special Operator Health along with Dr. Zafonte and others. Thanks for your support and tuning in to our 8th Season kick-off!In The News at Home Base!First, if you didn't know – In 2015 Home Base opened its doors in Fort Meyers, Florida, more recently expanded to Tampa, and now working with partners in Pensacola. This month our Home Base colleagues and all the community they serve are on our minds - in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton – Resilience and recovery is what our teams do for patients – But building back up your own body, mind and soul is another challenge - that is necessary to help take care of others. So, Marine Veteran Armando Hernandez heads up the FL team, thinking of you all.On September 11 and 12, the brainchild of Drs. Sofia Matta and Joe Bonvie – The 1st Annual Home Base Brain Health Summit, was a great success. With local and national experts at the podium, the Summit recognized the evolution of military medicine since 9/11, and focused on brain health and performance medicine in the Special Operations community, and a strong emphasis on not just living long, but living well – something we focus a lot of energy on at Home Base – Healthspan. Check out link here: https://homebase.org/events/brain-health-summit/Later in September, at the New England Council's massive event in the Boston Seaport, General Jack Hammond was one of the annual recipients the New Englander of the Year Award. Chairman of the Boston Red Sox and Co-Founder of Home Base Tom Werner's words summed it up, introducing our Executive Director: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHMYXDC6MBQLast week, we said our bittersweet farewells to Dr. Ross Zafonte who is heading to Missouri to lead the medical school. Ross received the prestigious Warren Award at Home Base from General Hammond and Michael Allard. AND, last month, Senator Warren visited Spaulding Rehab Hospital for a Forum on Blast Injury and Special Operator Health with Dr. Zafonte. Take a Listen: Senator Elizabeth Warren Forum at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in collaboration with Home Base (youtube.com)__________Home Base Nation is the official podcast for Home Base Program for Veterans and Military Families – Our team sees veterans, servicemembers and their families addressing the invisible wounds of war at no cost. This is all made possible thanks to a grateful nation – And if you want to learn more on how you can help, visit us at www.homebase.org, or if you or anyone you know would like to connect to care, you can also reach us at 617-724-5202.Follow Home Base on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedInThe Home Base Nation Team is Steve Monaco, Army Veteran Kelly Field, Justin Scheinert, Chuck Clough, with COO Michael Allard, Brigadier General Jack Hammond, and Peter Smyth.Producer and Host: Dr. Ron HirschbergAssistant Producer, Editor: Chuck CloughChairman, Home Base Media Lab: Peter SmythThe views expressed by guests to the Home Base Nation podcast are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by guests are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Home Base, the Red Sox Foundation or any of its officials.

Today, the Spotlight shines On drummer and composer Devin Gray.Like me, Devin is a born New Englander who made his way to Brooklyn, though unlike me, he splits his time between Brooklyn and Berlin.Devin has performed with Spotlight On alumni Angelica Sanchez and Satoko Fuji, as well as a who's who of the creative music scene: David Liebman, Sylvie Couvoisier, Tim Berne, Nate Wooley, and many others.Our conversation ranged from Devin's earliest exposures to music, his self-taught approach to drumming, genre divisions in music, local and regional art scenes, the different approaches to arts funding he's encountered in the US and Europe, the appeal of creating an artistic universe of work, sincerity and authenticity, more.Devin will be performing in Seattle in the next few days and I hope to continue our conversation then. Enjoy.(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Devin Gray's album Most Definitely)–Dig DeeperVisit Devin Gray at devingraymusic.comPurchase Devin Gray's Most Definitely on Qobuz or Bandcamp, and listen on SpotifyFollow Devin Gray on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter (X), and YouTube7 Questions for Devin GraySatoko Fujii: composing beyond the jazz spiritMelt All the Guns (feat. Ralph Alessi & Angelica Sanchez)Dig into this episode's complete show notes at spotlightonpodcast.com–• Did you enjoy this episode? Please share it with a friend! You can also rate Spotlight On ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.• Subscribe! Be the first to check out each new episode of Spotlight On in your podcast app of choice.• Looking for more? Visit spotlightonpodcast.com for bonus content, web-only interviews + features, and the Spotlight On email newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Mastodon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Englander writer Nathaniel Hawthorne visits the remains of Fort Ticonderoga, which played an important part in the French-Indian and Revolutionary wars as first the French battled the English for possession of the valuable waterways and later the British battled the American colonists for possesion of the northern colonies. For more short and long classic stories follow us at 1001 Stories From The Gilded Age. Also check out our archives at www.bestof1001stories.com

Medical advancements including a brain implant designed to curb seizures in severely epileptic patients, as well as a new treatment option for those suffering from tinnitus. Plus, on This Day in History, the tomato … and that time it was finally proven to be non-poisonous. UK boy has brain implant fitted to control epilepsy seizures in world first | Epilepsy | The Guardian Tongue-Zapping Device Can Rewire Your Brain to Ignore Tinnitus (goodnewsnetwork.org) Col. Johnson's Dramatic Demonstration - Contrary to early 19th century beliefs, tomatoes are not poisonous. It took an eccentric New Englander by the name of Col. Robert Gibbon Johnson to kill this popular belief by merely surviving the consumption of one of today's most popular vegetables... fruits? (missouri.edu) The Bizarre Salem Tomato Trials - The Fact Site Commercial Tomato Production Handbook | UGA Cooperative Extension Contact the show - coolstuffcommute@gmail.com Instagram - Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tune in as Howie covers the biggest stories of the day for New Englanders and beyond, from the Karen Read murder case to the Hunter Biden conviction. Don't miss today's comic relief, either! The Chump Line starts off the hour. Visit the Howie Carr Radio Network website to access columns, podcasts, and other exclusive content.

Robbie Hardy knows how to navigate the maze of the entrepreneurial journey—and she wants to help you do the same. She can guide you through the highs and lows, from your first major mistake to your first sale. She understands because she's been there.A New Englander by birth and an "entrepreneurologist" by trade, Robbie Hardy is an author, experienced investor, and entrepreneur with extensive startup and board experience.In this episode of Smashing the Plateau, Robbie Hardy, an adept entrepreneur and mentor, talks about her journey from a disenchanted corporate employee to a successful business founder and a passionate advocate for women's mentorship in business. Dive into Robbie's story to reveal how she found her true calling in the twists and turns of entrepreneurship.Robbie and I discuss:The discomfort that led Robbie to leave the corporate worldLaunching her own business and securing her previous employer as her first clientThe rollercoaster of starting and selling a software companyUtilizing corporate connections to fuel her entrepreneurial venturesRobbie's mission to mentor women and help them find their voiceThe dynamics of effective mentorship and its transformative powerRobbie's advice for corporate refugees seeking to venture into entrepreneurshipLearn more about Robbie at https://www.robbiehardy.com/.Thank you to our sponsor:The Smashing the Plateau CommunityGet your exclusive subscription for direct access to our podcast gurus' streamlined, precise tips on strategy. One click is all it stands between you and mastering your success journey!

Fearless and fiercely intelligent, the nineteenth-century American feminist Margaret Fuller was "the radiant genius and fiery heart" of the Transcendentalists, the group of New Englanders who helped launch a fledgling nation onto the world's cultural and literary stage. In this episode, bestselling historical novelist Allison Pataki, author of the new novel Finding Margaret Fuller, joins Jacke to discuss what it was like to bring this remarkable nineteenth-century woman to life. PLUS James Marcus (Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  1/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1921 TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER ROME

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  2/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1922 TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  3/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1932 TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER PARIS, FRANCE

ONE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, UNFINISHED.  4/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War 1937 TOM OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER WARSAW, POLAND

“I believe I can swing it.” This is the story of the Coolidge Administration. Calvin Coolidge isn't the most talkative guy–he's painfully shy, to be frank–but “Silent Cal” does care deeply about public service. Over the years, the thrifty, hard-working New Englander moves up the ranks, from municipal offices to state offices, until, as Massachusetts Governor, he's asked to join Warren G. Harding's run for the White House. When the scandalous, playboy President meets an untimely end, family man Cal suddenly finds himself President of the United States. Cal slashes government spending and taxes while pursuing peace abroad. He also sees terrible heartache with the loss of loved ones. Meanwhile, the nation is debating if evolution should be taught in schools, the Mississippi floods, and the sculpting of Mount Rushmore begins. Cal might not be a hands-on president, but much is happening during his time in office that will reverberate into the years ahead.  ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. HTDS is part of the Airwave Media Network.  Interested in advertising on the History That Doesn't Suck? Email us at advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

IS A WORLD WAR BUILDING?   3/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 1900 DIRIGIBLE US ARMY

IS A WORLD WAR BUILDING?   4/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 1917 YANKEES MEET FRENCHMEN

IS A WORLD WAR BUILDING?   2/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 1902 SHARPSHOOTERS 

IS A WORLD WAR BUILDING?   1/4: The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home, by  Patrick K. O'Donnell  When the first Unknown Soldier was laid to rest in Arlington, General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, selected eight of America's most decorated, battle-hardened veterans to serve as Body Bearers. For the first time, O'Donnell portrays their heroics on the battlefield one hundred years ago, thereby animatingÅÇ the Tomb by giving voice to all who have served. The Body Bearers appropriately spanned America's service branches and specialties. Their ranks include a cowboy who relived the charge of the light brigade, an American Indian who heroically breached mountains of German barbed wire, a salty New Englander who dueled a U-boat for hours in a fierce gunfight, a tough New Yorker who sacrificed his body to save his ship, and an indomitable gunner who, though blinded by gas, nonetheless overcame five machine-gun nests. Their stories slip easily into the larger narrative of America's involvement in the conflict, transporting readers into the midst of dramatic battles during 1917–1918 that ultimately decided the Great War https://www.amazon.com/Unknowns-Americas-Soldier-Decorated-Brought/dp/0802128335 1941 MALTA

Bill Belichick is thought of by many as the greatest coach in NFL history. His tenure as the head coach of the New England Patriots has produced nine AFC Championships, six Super Bowl rings, and put Belichick within striking distance of catching Don Shula for the most wins of any coach ever. But after two decades of dominance, and a little bit of controversy, the past few years have been anything but what we've come to expect from the Patriots. Instead of being “onto Cincinnati,” they've fallen onto hard times, ultimately ending up with their worst record since 1992, landing at 4-13.  And so now, with the season now over, we wait for the answer to the question people have been asking since midway through the 2023 season. Will Bill Belichick be the Patriots coach come next season? Or is it time for his career to move to a new city? Would the grass be greener in Atlanta, or Washington, or Los Angeles? Field Yates, host of the Fantasy Focus podcast, joins the show to tell us how this all looks to a lifelong New Englander. And explore what comes next for both Belichick and the Patriots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices