Episode 7: Koach KO New Year's Fitness Pt. 2; Stowe, VT; Old School Snow Days; This Week In History, New Book Announcement (1-21-2021)

Episode 7 of the podcast follows up with the second part of the interview with Kaylin Orr, Koach KO about getting fit in the New Year.  In this part there is some Q&A including solutions for fitness for busy mothers and a few of her favorite recipes for healthy eating.  It is a perfect companion to Part 1 from Episode 6.
A fabulous Road Trip takes us up north to Stowe, Vermont.  It is known mostly for its wonderful skiing at Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak but has way more to offer that makes it a four-season vacation destination.
We piggyback on the skiing in Stowe as I go Back In the Day to reminisce about what it was like growing up when we would have snow days.  There was no more incredible feeling than getting up for school only to hear it was cancelled on the local radio station.  Sledding, snow men, cold fingertips and hot chocolate.
This Week In History tells the story of the great Brinks robbery in Boston from 1950, traces to second voyage of Captain James Cook, looks at the birth of iconic writer Edgar Allan Poe, and flashes back to MTV Unplugged's debut.
All of this and more is here in Episode 7, so come and take a walk!

Check out Episode 6 here.

Transcript

00:00 Intro

Hello world! How is everybody doing out there this week? This is the In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 7. I am Christopher Setterlund coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I want to welcome you in to another episode of history, travel, lifestyle, nostalgia, and entertainment, and all that good stuff that I try to pump into these podcasts every time I put them out there.

So how's everyone doing? How have you done with your new year's resolutions? It's got to be tough. 2021 is starting off similar to 2020 so I can understand if people are kind of hesitant with their new year's resolutions because things just kind of go from bad to worse and get kind of crazy but hang in there. 1 resolution I can kind of help you with is fitness in the new year.  For anybody who didn't listen to episode 6 I had an interview with fitness trainer and mindful life coach Koach KO Kaylin Orr. She gives a lot of great information about fitness in the new year and just taking care of yourself in general and she is back for episode 7 with a little Q&A to kind of color in the lines of the outline that we created last week. So stay tuned for that a little later in this podcast.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time out to listen to any of these previous episodes. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback which makes me feel great and makes me really enjoy putting these out there knowing that it's finding an audience and I can just keep it growing through 2021 and beyond. Like I said you can find me on all of the major podcast platforms: iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Stitcher, recently I got added to Amazon music so now you can go and find the In My Footsteps Podcast there. Just look for the logo created by Amy Keller Jump the great 1 with New England and Cape Cod in the nice footprint on it.

Before we go on and get the podcast started I wanted to kind of make a special announcement that my sixth book is going to be coming out May 24, 2021. I just got the announcement in an email from my publisher the History Press part of Arcadia Publishing. This book is entitled Iconic Hotels and Resorts of Cape Cod and I'm really excited about it. Because of Covid it got kind of delayed, I had finished this book almost a year ago and sent it into the publisher and obviously things kind of happened. It's going to feature some of the most popular and most well known hotels, motels, resorts, inns of Cape Cod most of them are still open but some of them have been lost to history.  And I think it's going to be perfect when it's coming out the week before Memorial Day because hopefully things have started to get closer to normal by then which means that people can pick up this book and find these places, these resorts and go there and stay there and it's like you're being a part of history. As we get closer to the release date I'll probably go more in depth into the actual process of creating a book as far as writing and then going through the editing and such but I just wanted to make the announcement now because I just found out about it a couple of days ago. With my last book number 5 Cape Cod Nights which was about historic nightlife, bars and nightclubs I was able to get on to channel 5 WCVB's iconic show Chronicle and we were able to showcase the book and one of the places that I featured in the book the Beachcomber in Wellfleet. What I'm hoping is for this book now that's coming up that I can get back on Chronicle because I think the book ties in with, not the end of Covid but it's kind of trending that way, hopefully by then and it's sort of like a way to reopen Cape Cod to vacationers and tourists and the book will kind of tie in and will be able to go to a few of these iconic hotels and resorts and it's one hand washes the other. So if anyone from Chronicle is listening to this podcast just realize that I'll be contacting you folks soon and maybe we can do business again together. But that's coming up in a few months right now we've got Episode 7 of the In My Footsteps Podcast. It's going to be featuring like I said part 2 of the interview with Kaylin Orr Koach KO. We're going to take a trip up north to the beautiful ski town of Stowe, Vermont. We're going to piggyback on that by going back in the day and talking about old school snow days, what it was like to have a snow day when you were a kid that's going to be fun. And we're gonna do this week in history which is going to include the crime of the century in Boston and looking back at the debut of MTV's Unplugged among other things. So this is Episode 7 of the In My Footsteps Podcast I am Christopher Setterlund and come on let's go take a walk.

05:49 Road Trip: Stowe, Vermont

It's road trip time again. So here we go, it's winter, it's January, it's time for skiing for those that like skiing so I figured what better place to explore them 1 of the ski capitals of New England the beautiful 4 season town of Stowe, Vermont. It's only about an hour south of the Canadian border up there in way northern Vermont nestled in the Green Mountains it's known for Mountain Mansfield which is the highest peak in Vermont it's 4395 feet tall. Even though it's considered a 4 season place to visit, because it's beautiful in the summer there too, skiing is the main industry when it comes to Stowe and a lot of northern Vermont. Just how big is the ski industry up there? Well according to Ski Vermont for the 2017-2018 winter season the state managed 3.9 million ski days for that season. It's incredible so you can go and ski Mount Mansfield you can check out Spruce Peak ski there as well. The auto road itself, just driving up the mountain, it gives you incredible views of the surrounding Green Mountains. The skiing up in Stowe is so synonymous with the town. I think about it this way when you hear the state of Vermont what town do you think of first? I mean you might go Montpelier you might go Burlington but I think Stowe pops right up there and the crazy thing about that is that the population of Stowe is just over 4,400 people as of 2018. That puts it not even in the top 10 largest towns in the state but yet it's so well known for its skiing however still is the largest town land wise and I think mount Mansfield in that whole area has a lot to do with it. 

So if you're going up there to ski you can stay at such beloved places as the lodge at Spruce Peak and Smugglers Notch resort. Those are always great places to go even not in the winter but if you go there not to ski what else is there to see in Stowe, Vermont? Say if you go in the summer, the first places Moss Glen Falls, that's about 4 miles north of downtown Stowe it's about a 3 mile loop that lead you to a waterfall. The fall itself is about 35 feet high and the trail out there is not that difficult, it's easy to moderate, but it's definitely recommended to use it more in the spring and fall rather than trying to hike out there in the winter time when it's covered in snow.

Northern New England especially is known for a lot of covered bridges if you enjoy covered bridges there's the Gold Brook covered bridge which is located on covered Bridge Road right in Stowe. It's also known as the Stone Hollow bridge or Emily's bridge. It was built in 1844 and spans about 50 feet over the aforementioned Gold Brook. I always enjoy covered bridges there's something that just screams quaint New England and covered bridges you just they're great for photo opportunities. There's something about them I can't explain it definitely if you're in Stowe go and check it out and just experience it. If hiking is not you're thing if covered bridges aren't your thing if skiing is not your thing well there's still something else you can check out in Stowe, Vermont. That's the Alchemist Brewery located at 100 Cottage Club Road. This branch of the brewery was opened in 2016 after the success of the alchemist's brew pub, opened in Waterbury in 2003. The brewery and visitor center in Stowe provides you know tours, taste tests, and you can obviously by the beer that's a great place to check. Check out if you're not there looking to ski but I think if you go to Stowe the scenery especially. That's one thing I love photography and beautiful scenery and that's something you go there and you get swept up in it and you may end up skiing. I'm not a big fan of skiing I would probably go to the mountain and take pictures more than ski but you know that's me.

One last thing if skiing or brewery or anything like that hasn't gotten you in the mood to go to Stowe you can do a road trip driving this is called Road Trip so what better way than driving on the historic Route 100 in Vermont. It's the state's longest numbered highway and travels more than 200 miles north to south in the state. It is easily one of the best places to go for fall foliage it's right up there near the top of any place in New England you want to go to still Waterbury the mad river valley the Route 100 corridor is just one of those bucket list type places if you haven't driven it people that live in Massachusetts akin this road to the Mohawk Trail out in the Berkshires. It's similar if you've done that one there are similar but different there's nothing like the fall foliage colors with the beautiful homes the rural areas the colors the churches and things like that it's one of those you see the photos and you just know quintessential New England quintessential Vermont. That's what Stowe is on top of being one of the country's best ski towns it's just a place to go and just get engrossed in the beautiful scenery and the culture.

For more information and better photos that I can do justice with descriptions you can go to GoStowe.com they've got a lot of great information there is also Stowe.com and SkiVermont.com because that's definitely the main reason people go as much as I'm trying to sell you on the rest of Stowe.  I think the majority of people go in the winter to go skiing so I'm not going to hide from that fact. If you're plotting out the drive how far still is from other places in New England it's about 3 hours north of Boston about 3.5 hours northwest of Portland Maine and if you're coming from the other direction it's about 3 hours northeast of Albany New York.  So not far of a drive for people that are going skiing and if you're going for a trip to see the beautiful scenery it's really not that bad it flies by. Join me again for another road trip coming up hopefully you enjoyed this one hopefully you go check out Stowe anytime of year is a great time to go for different reasons but just get out there and enjoy all of what New England in the surrounding areas have to offer.

13:07 Koach KO Interview Part 2

Coming up now is going to be part two of my interview with Kaylin Orr Koach KO. If you were listening last week, she talked a lot about New Year's fitness and her expertise in the fitness and nutrition department. This week, it's more of Q&A. I ask her a few questions that will kind of help as a supplement to what we were doing last time. Hopefully you get a lot of good information out of this. So here, without further ado, is part two of my interview with Kaylin Orr Koach KO. 

Chris Setterlund: Ok, we are back. This is part two of our interview with Koach KO, Kaylin Orr. We're back in the studio studio again. This is a little add on. There's no video with this, but it's another chance for Kaylin to get to share her expertise with you as far as fitness in the new year goes. So I've just got a couple of questions that will be good ones. So do you have any exercise recommendations for busy mothers that can't get to the gym? And what can they do to get into shape or maintain their fitness? If you've got kids and you can't get to the gym? 

Kaylin Orr: Ok, so I have a friend who incorporates her kids with her exercises. So there are amazing kids workout videos that are if you do a cardio one on YouTube or anything, get the kids involved. You could do a kid's video for the little kids and do your workout while they're entertained, getting them into fitness early. Or you can do yours and have them join in. You see lots of videos online where the kids are learning yoga really young and it's helping them at school or think you can do that and maybe there's fees involved. You just have to schedule it. You just have to make it and apply it like anything else. Make that time. It's from here to here and getting it done no matter what. That's a great way to try to do it too.

CS: Nice. That works. I have two of my sisters have younger kids. Sometimes it's hard for them to work out. I thought that might be nice to give them some advice as far as making sure you put the time in for yourself also. All right. So changing your diet is tough. What are a couple of very basic changes people can make to get on the right track? 

KO: Diet is the most hard, OK? It's it's really a balance of both. But I asked this question in my online program during covid, would you rather work out, workout harder, eat what you want to? Or would you or could you tailor food more so that you don't have to work up as hard? There are two types of people. I am very clearly the workout harder person because I just love food so much and it's OK to love food so much. It's the smarter choices that make the biggest difference. 

So here's my number one, because I just told my sister that on the phone the other day, protein with every single meal, that's going to be fuller. It's going to help you digest the bad parts slower. So let's say you have if you really want a candy bar to substitute a protein bar in its place, you have the protein, slow down the absorption of sugar. So you're able to burn it off before I can start a scientific way to set some smart choices, candy bar, whatever protein bar instead of a meal, maybe not, but protein with every meal you will be fuller it will hold you over. 

Another thing that I do actually is I do a lentil or chickpea noodles instead of pasta or carbs. So I took carbs out of my dinner, not my diet, my dinners. I chose one meal. There's no carbs. I put in the lentil noodles. They make them a Barela brand, right? Because they're like two dollars. They're not in the health section. And instead of rice, instead of potato, instead of pasta, lentil, noodles, chicken, they make black the noodles. You're getting the feel of the taste of pasta. But it's pretty and it's Amazing Spice. It oh yeah. That's the thing. I was able to cut sugar out of my tea with spice, fresh ginger instead of sugar. Same thing with salt in my food, adding spice, being careful not to add the spice with salt but spicy stuff has stuff to take salt out of the food makes it taste better. 

CS: What spices would you recommend? Because salt is a tough one.

KO:  All right. My go to is I make soup, and for the chicken with that, veggies with it is cayenne, cumin, and chili powder. And those three, I don't know, there's like a hot there's but there's a flavor in those. Oh, my gosh, so good on chicken. It tastes so good. No salt. Some people that I cook for may say you need a little bit of salt, but you get used to it and you take it out little by little. You get used to the taste. And then when you can't taste that salty anymore, remember small shifts, small little shifts make a huge difference. I Promise. Spice it up. 

CS: Ok, so what are your thoughts on supplements? I'm not going to talk about fat burners, but are there any supplements, vitamins that are beneficial to someone's diet? 

KO: Ok, so can I tell a quick story? 

CS: Absolutely. 

KO: Ok, so I used to be addicted to energy drinks, speed energy drinks like Monster.  So in the fitness terms, when you take that runner's energy drinks, there's just a quick rush.  You tend to rely on that supplement too much, right? I don't drink enough water. I was drinking that I would get through my classes or my workouts so easily. It's never phased me. And then I decided to go off of that and working out was so difficult, so very hard and to find that drive. But I noticed the change my body almost instantly because I had to work so hard to facilitate the change in my body and to get the energy up to do what I was doing. So that was a big that was a big thing. If you drink energy drinks, think about that. You have to use your own reserve to find the energy in your burning fat and stored energy. 

As far as supplements, honestly, truthfully, fish oil is is one of the best ones for joints and and pain and just overall life.  I remember asking my doctor if I take one supplement or would it be they said fish oil.  Because I tore my shoulder this year and I took it for muscle recovery and I took it with water. And it's there's of energy in and I get the one without energy in it. But I'm typically not a supplement person. And only when I have this injury did I turn to something that I felt was going to help me with tissue and things like that. Whatever it does on the scientific level, I don't know. But I tend to go mostly for wholefood, mostly for a plant based stuff. 

CS: Ok, so one last question. We'll see how this goes. I notice a lot on your social media that you do a lot of cooking and you've talked about the spices and such. Is there any sort of go to recipe if something you make that the people listening might be able to try that would help kind of added to their diet? 

KO: Oh, absolutely. OK, this is when this whole started. I cook enough food for ten people when I'm alone or just with my boyfriend, honestly, because having the food ready at home in the fridge. I should have mentioned that earlier.  Meal prep is like the biggest thing ever. If you're seriously hungry and you need to cook a meal, you're going to reach for something else. So I make this enormous, my grandma's turkey roasting pan thing of veggies. So get all the veggies you love. I don't care if it's carrots, potato. I don't care what it is. There's vitamins in white potato that you can't get anywhere else. So it's not always that to cut out. But I like brussels sprouts and broccoli and cauliflower and carrots and sweet potato and cut it all up, spice it all up olive oil and roast it in every single detail. So good.  You can do just whatever seasoning you can, add whatever to it, keep that in the fridge, use it for every single meal, double veggies, make some chicken with it. If your plan fails to just veggies, cheese and rice or whatever you want to do, have it ready. 

Then I also make snacks. So I do oatmeal three ways. There's overnight oats where you put oatmeal and almond milk and any topping any protein powder you want layer the top with beautiful fruit and nuts and you leave it in the fridge overnight the next morning for lunch. I do the same thing with baked oatmeal cups. You make that with just all the milk, baking powder, whatever you want in there. This kind of. To reckon there made it spicy and then you bake it and feels like you're eating a muffin, even though it's just oats and almond milk, it's brilliant. Having snacks in your car that are healthy, make sure they have protein in them so you're not seeing carbs and sugar. And then this is the main one right here. Ready. Soup is in season right now. OK, bone broth, chicken. You don't have that chicken. All the veggies in the world that you want, the lentil noodles and chicken, those translate great in those soups, too. I measured on my my soup last year, 280 grams of protein per serving and veggies. And those those meals powered me through five or six classes on the blacktop pavement for summer. No problem. 

CS: No kidding? See, she's she's giving you a lot of stuff right there. And obviously, do you have, I guess it or any of these recipes written down or is it kind of like you just know what to do? 

KO: I mean, from growing up with my mom, I just. Oh, yeah, I was more at home. On my Instagram. I do. I write a lot of the things out. I only had one more. This is the best thing. Anyone listening. You make a lot of snow. It's called a banana pancake. But guess what? It's just two eggs in one banana and it looks like it looks like an omelet. And when I put peanut butter on it, people are so grossed out. But it's you just for the mash, the banana two eggs, fry it with maybe a little bit of olive oil a tiny bit. And then the peanut butter on it. No sugar, no flour, no nothing. 

CS: See that? There you go. There's a lot of recipes, right? There are things that'll help you change your diet, things that will help me change my diet. And then you can, after you're done changing your diet, come and find Kaylin Orr, Koach KO and work on the rest. It's all one hand washes the other. 

KO: That's right. That's right. Diet and fitness. Right. And water. Lots of water. Water. What do you think? You're hungry, but you're just thirsty. So you have to remember that. 

CS: Thank you so much for being a part of the In My Footsteps Podcast. Go find Kaylin on social media, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and if you have any questions about any of the recipes, you can shoot me an email and I will shoot her an email. We will see what we can come up with. Thank you so much to Kaylin Orr, Koach KO for giving us some of her time to share some fitness and nutrition expertise, there is a lot to unpack with that interview and the previous one. So if you have any questions, if anything kind of flew by because Kaylin had a lot of information to share, if anything didn't make sense. Shoot me an email, ChristopherSetterlund@gmail.com and we will try to sort it out for you and also give me some feedback on what you thought of this interview segment. Granted, we were in a studio, so there was some echo. On my Audacity software that I used to edit this podcast I tried my best to reduce a lot of it. But besides that, if you enjoyed the interview, I'm going to be trying to do more of these every so often. Let me know what you thought of it. If there's anyone you'd like to hear me interview, within reason. But thank you again to Kaylin Orr for giving us some of her time on the In My Footsteps Podcast. 

If you're looking to get fit in the New Year. And after hearing part one and part two of the interviews with Kaylin Orr and you want to train with her, there's a lot of places you can do that. As we talked about, she trains at Studio EX in Hyannis. She also trains at Forte Fitness, also in Hyannis. Remember, she does in-home training if you want to contact her about that. She has pages on Facebook. She's got Instagram, which is the Koach KO with two underscores. She also has Kaylin Orr Fitness on YouTube. I picked her to discuss New Year's fitness because I believe in her skill and her ability to meet everyone where they are and get the best out of them. Whatever it is you need, she can give. So check out her videos, check out her photos, check out all of her advice, her recipes. If you're looking for overall fitness, weight loss, muscle gain, nutrition, dietary changes, all of that, Coach Kaylin Orr is your solution. So find her on all of those platforms. Find her at Studio EX, find her at Forté Fitness. 

28:28 Old School Snow Days

It's time again to go way back in the day. This is kind of my reminiscing, retro, Nostalgia segment of the podcast.  I'm going to find some stuff from my childhood young adulthood to share see if any of you, especially the ones that are my age, will probably be able to relate to. So it's January it's time to talk about old school snow days.

Growing up in New England on Cape Cod in the 1980s we got a lot of snow days, surprisingly though not as many as you might think, because a lot of the times they would make us go to school even with snow on the ground. You get a certain amount of snow days and if you go past them then you've got to go to school later into the summer to end of June so it was almost like we'd rather not get a snow day, then you don't have to go to school until the end of June. The anticipation for the snow days was always incredible. You knew there was a chance but you couldn't risk staying up late later than you would for a school day because then if you had to get up and actually go to school and get up at 6 or 7 a.m. with no sleep that was worst. You kind of hedged your bets you'd go to sleep early, you wake up early, and then you would put on the radio and listen and every maybe 15 minutes on the radio they would announce new schools that been canceled. It was always the worst if your school still had school but the rest of the area didn't, that was not fair.

Once you got the official word it was off to the races. You'd immediately get on your snow gear, if you were young you had the snow suits where you basically stepped into them and zipped up the front. I'm one of five kids and I'm the oldest of the five so we would just kind of wander out into the yard at first. We were lucky to live 1/4 mile walk at most from a golf course it was right behind our house but if there's five of us kids and the oldest is me and I'm 11 and the youngest is 4 you don't really want to walk to the golf course. I have twin sisters the youngest they wouldn't want to walk to the golf course with a pair of four year-olds back then. So we would drive. We had the classic Aerostar minivan a blue one with blue and kind of silver and all of us kids would pile into it and you had the classic plastic sleds. The cheap ones. What parent's going to buy super expensive sleds for kids to ruin? We would get driven to the golf course and spend hours there sledding down the hills. You find the farthest hill that you could slide down it as much as you could until you were ready to pass out or until your fingers went numb and feet. That happened quite a bit.  I just remember at the golf course being a line of minivans with all the different parents bringing their kids there to tire them out. Who in the world as a parent would want to have all their kids at home inside on a snow day? You want to tire them out so then they fall asleep when they get home.

As I got older I would walk to the golf course and go sledding just with friends. Those were the days we'd explore, go deep into the golf course find hidden secret hills, ones that weren't even hills that had rocks and stumps and you just slide down and just bust your sled or bust your butt. Those are the times we ended up getting the nice innertubes, sometimes you have to pump them up in the cold but you take those and you can get some serious speed going down especially the driving ranges at the golf course, those were pretty wide-open. Of course with the freedom to go to the golf course with your friends came the problem of having to actually shovel the driveway. That was always an advantage you know for all the headaches and trouble that the five of us kids cause my mother. I think she had the advantage of being able to tell all of us get out there and shovel the driveway so that she didn't have to do it.

I remember I think 1987. January 87, we had a pretty bad storm on Cape Cod and I swear we had four or five straight days off from school for a while we had no power and we had a fireplace and I can remember drying clothes on the little screen that you put in front of the fireplace and even heating up coffee. Back then I didn't drink it I was 10 years old. 

I don't remember a lot of specific snow days I just remember the overall feeling. Unless it was a super duper blizzard you were outside in the snow almost all day and this was back when you'd just leave the house, your parents would tell you come back whenever, 2 hours, 3 Hours, come back when the street lights are on and they didn't have to worry about you. It was like having a babysitter without having a babysitter.  I never went skiing but as I got in the high school my sledding activities kind of got a little different we would do night sledding.  I remember my friends John and Barry, we will go to the golf course at night and go sledding and it was more fun extreme because you couldn't see where you were going. We even got to one point when we went sledding down the hilly entrance way to this golf course which is a lot of fun, I mean unless you crash into the side, we did that once.  I used to have a video camera in high school and I video taped us doing night sledding once and I do remember carrying the camera as I sledded down the street and crashing into a sign.  I didn't destroy the camera but it still it looked good. 

After I got my driver's license I was shocked that my mother was sometimes allow me to drive the car in the snowstorms, after a snowstorm.  I mean we had this old blue Oldsmobile station wagon. I don't think that my mother didn't care if I wrecked it but I think she had some trust that I wouldn't destroy it.  I remember specifically this one time I had to pick her up late from work we're talking 11 at night and it was in a snowstorm and she still got called into work. My sister Lindsay who's the fourth out of us five kids she came with me. I ended up, not crashing the car, but hitting a snowbank. Rather than trying to have her, I think she was 11 years old, get out and push I got out to push the car and I was explaining to her how to drive. I'll never forget I pushed the car, we got out of the snowbank and she is just, not peeling out down the street, but I'm having to chase my eleven-year-old sister driving the car in the snow. She eventually got the brakes on but that's another one of those sort of snow day memories, I know I didn't have school but that was an adventure. 

A snow day would end with coming in with your soaking wet clothes, leaving your boots at the door. My mother hated that we would just come all of us flying into the kitchen from the snow. She would have to have all of us throw our clothes especially the boots right at the door everything else kind of leave them there so then I'll handle it just leave them. Then we had hot chocolate of course marshmallows in it and then we be wiped out we veg out in front of the TV assuming we had power and hope we had no school the next day which quite often if you had one day off you would have another one if it was a big enough storm.

Sledding on the golf course, night sledding, hot chocolate, the old school snow days.  I was too young to remember the Blizzard of 78, I was probably 3 months old, but we were able to kind of go and enjoy yourselves and have fun so it's always positive memories. Now you know snow is the only thing that is similar to those old days, you rarely get days off from work, so it's usually just get up shovel snow and go to work.

So what are your memories of old school snow days?  I'm sure it's different if you grew up in the city, you might go and skate at the skating rink if they have one of those outdoors but if you grew up like I did on Cape Cod and in the less-populated areas it was sledding on the golf course or just walking around the snowy neighborhood scenery but I hope I brought back some memories going back in the day of the old school snow days.

37:51 This Week In History

It's time once again for this week in history. This is where I go over for events that happened this week in the past, local, national, world, and some fun pop culture. So let's dive right into it. This week in history, 71 years ago, on January 17th, 1950, the crime of the century happened in the north end of Boston. This crime was a robbery in the north end at 165 Prince Street, which is actually less than 1/4 mile from the great molasses flood that I spoke about on last week's podcast, ironically, really close by. So the nuts and bolts of it are at 7:30pm a group of between five and seven masked and armed robbers robbed a Brinks building. All of the robbers had these weird sort of Halloween masks on and the employees were bound and gagged with tape on the floor. It was seen as kind of odd that they did very little talking and moved with such precision. It was like they had rehearsed this for months before actually going on to do it. So when they were looting the place, a buzzer went off that signified that someone wanted to get into the vault, and it was a garage attendant and that kind of set things off. The garage attendant was lucky, though, because he ended up not coming in and two of the robbers went to apprehend him. So he actually got away. In the end, the masked robbers got away with cash and checks and more that totaled about 30 million when adjusted for inflation. There was a $100,000 reward offered for any info and there were hundreds of dead ends and trying to apprehend any of these robbers. The investigation lasted years and actually it came up about five days before the statute of limitations was going to run out. In January 1956, five members of the gang were arrested with three more being arrested within the next few months. The eight received life sentences in prison for their actions in the robbery, with all but one being paroled in 1971.  Not surprisingly, only $58,000 of the money that was taken in the robbery was ever recovered. If you want to learn more about that robbery, there was a book written called The Men Who Robbed Brinks, released in 1961. It was written by Bob Considine and he actually had help from a former gang member, Joseph 'Specks' O'Keefe.

This week in history. 212 years ago, January 19th, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston. Poe was a giant in the American literary scene. He was mostly known for his poetry and short stories. That's kind of how he got started. His first book was an anonymous collection called Tamerlane and Other Poems that he released in 1827. For those that might not be familiar with Edgar Allan Poe, his most famous works are Fall of the House of Usher from 1839, The Tell-Tale Heart from 1843, and perhaps his most famous work, The Raven from 1845. He was one of the first people to try to make a full time living as a writer. And he was one easily one of the most influential writers of the 19th century. And his contributions, as far as mystery and horror, still stand tall today. Any talk about Poe's life has to include his mysterious death. So he died in Baltimore on October 7th, 1849, at the age of 40. Theories about how he died had been disputed for forever. He was said to be delirious when he was found basically laying in the gutter and he was unable to ever explain what had happened to him when he died a few days after he was found. People say anything from murder, to suicide, alcohol poisoning, to even crazy things like rabies or something called 'cooping,' which was a form of voter fraud where you'd be grabbed off the street and given a ton of alcohol so that you couldn't think straight. And then you were forced to vote for a certain candidate in an election. And that's another theory as to what might have happened to Poe. Regardless of how he died, his work still stand the test of time today. And Edgar Allan Poe was born 212 years ago this week in history. 

This week in history. 248 years ago, January 17th, 1773, Captain James Cook became the first person to sail into the Antarctic Circle. In July 1770 to Cook departed Great Britain aboard the HMS Resolution. This was his second journey. On his first he had mapped out much of New Zealand and Australia and he was commissioned to do this second journey not too long after he returned from the first. Cook became the person to travel further south of anyone in history, although he did not actually reach the mainland of Antarctica.

It was on the 17th of January that he penetrated the Antarctic Circle. On this journey. He would actually cross into the circle three times total. The third time that he crossed in was the furthest south, but he ended up having to turn the ship back due to the weather and the sea ice. The journey was a success. And when he returned home to Britain in 1775, he was seen again as a conquering hero and was actually commissioned for a third exploratory trip. This one was not as lucky, though. This time, Cook went all the way out to Hawaii and a cutter was stolen from one of his ships in 1779. This was when this journey took place. Cook was murdered while attempting to kidnap Hawaii's monarch Kalaniopuu. So the third voyage of Captain James Cook did not go as well. But this week in history, January 17th, 1773, Cook became the first man to sail into the Antarctic Circle. 

In pop culture this week in history, 31 years ago, on January 21st, 1990, MTV's Unplugged show debuted. The show was recorded a couple of months earlier, but made its debut on this day on the network. It wasn't even called MTV Unplugged at the time. The band Squeeze was the main attraction of this one. If you don't know them, they've got a song Tempted and another Pulling Mussels From a Shell. If you listen to them, they're pretty good. It's just incredible to think of the bands and the artists that came after that they were the kind of the first to headline unplugged over the years. Bands like Kiss, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, 10000 Maniacs, Jay-Z and more have graced the the stage of MTV Unplugged but for me, as a child of the 80s, teenager of the 90s, being defined by Grunge music, as much as I was growing up for me, it was those bands when they played MTV Unplugged, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and for me, especially Nirvana, that's the band that kind of defined me. I remember the Nirvana show in October 1993 and only after Kurt Cobain died in April 94. And then watching that show back that I realize all the kind of funeral imagery of the set. The Pearl Jam show was actually the one that was first on MTV Unplugged and I always got a kick out of it because I don't know if they were told, or Eddie Vedder was told, not to swear in any of the songs as a couple that have swears, especially from Ten when he does a song, Porch and it starts off with a swear I won't say it. It's like he made this noise, like he was swallowing it so he wouldn't say it and then he scribbles on his arm with this marker. He writes 'pro-choice' on his arm or at least that's what he said he wrote, you couldn't really tell at the time. He just looked like he was insane scribbling on himself. But that was kind of the feel of grunge. It was different. It was counterculture. I'll get way more into grunge as we go into this podcast. And there was also Alice in Chains, which I really enjoyed, that was one of their last shows, maybe their last show they ever did when that one came out on Unplugged. I'll always remember Jerry Cantrell, the guitarist, had something scribbled on his guitar and it said, 'friends don't let friends get haircuts.' It was because Metallica was sitting in the front row and this was when they had all gotten the haircuts and got rid of their long hair. Only after the fact that I find that out. MTV Unplugged would kind of give way to a cousin on VH1, VH1 Storytellers. They're very similar. It's a way to kind of cut through the noise and just hear what the music was about. And that's why with bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, that were seen as counterculture and loud alternative grunge, and you strip all that away and you see that they're super talented musicians. That was kind of the big takeaway. Other ones like Clapton and Rod Stewart and Paul McCartney, they were all established already. So they really didn't need it but for these Grunge bands. It really helped to establish them as more than just screaming, yelling, feedback. It all started this week in history. 31 years ago with the premiere of MTV Unplugged. 

And that's going to do it for this week in history. We'll have another one coming up next week. Hopefully you're enjoying these, as always. I kind of I don't gloss over these. I try to fit them in in a time frame to make this a manageable segment and a manageable podcast. Obviously, there's more stuff that you can learn about all of these. There's research that I did. The FBI website can tell you all about the Brinks robbery. Edgar Allen Poe has a website that has a huge long biography, things like that, but definitely go out of your way to check out the unplugged and learn as much as you can about history. It's my favorite subject, and I think that projects a little bit here. But I'll be back next week for more this week in history.

48:47 Closing:

And that's gonna do it for Episode 7 of the In My Footsteps Podcast. Thank you again to all of you who have listened to any of these episodes.  I hope that you've enjoyed them and if you've enjoyed them you spread the word that's the best way to get this to grow is just tell a friend who tells a friend and then we go from there. 

Be sure to go and subscribe on YouTube I do companion video pieces for each episode where I take 1 of the segments and kind of put photos and animations to. But go over and subscribe on YouTube I do that for each episode I had 1 for the last episode 6 with my interview with Kaylin Orr you can still go check that out too. Go and find me on Facebook, I have an In My Footsteps Podcast page.  Instagram I have 2 accounts the personal 1 that's got my photos and I've got a podcast 1 In My Footsteps Podcast it's more obviously podcast related. Twitter my handle is Chris Setterlund, find me on all the social media.  I also have my own personal website Christopher Setterlund.com that's where you can find all 5 of my books that are out now, book 6 will be out as I said at the top of the podcast May 24. If you don't want to go to my site you can always go to Amazon you can also go to History Press.com or Schiffer.com and find them there. If you're looking for podcast merch I don't have much, a bumper sticker and a key chain, I have a Zazzle store. Zazzle.com Cape Cod Living, go there.  I've got those things I have some photos that are kind of made into postcards that are pretty neat.  I also have a calendar for 2021 Massachusetts After Dark. A little funny side note is I printed these calendars out and sent them to some friends and family and the funny thing is that when I designed the calendar I did not put my name on it so people are getting this calendar and although they knew it was from me there was no proof it was from me and my friend Barry actually said to me said 'you know next time you should probably put your name on it' and I couldn't believe it because when I made the calendars last year for 2020 I did the same thing at first didn't put my name on it.  I like my photos I don't want to be anonymous when I put these together. I have a calendar up on this Zazzle store and some other merchandise on there if you're interested. You know it's my podcast I gotta plug all my stuff all at once. Check out my In My Footsteps blog that's at blogger.com.  I've been doing that for 10 years now. Travel articles, lifestyle articles, those are more recent but go and check those out. Those are pretty good too for those that are interested in Cape Cod and New England history.  I've got a lot of that lesser known stuff I find it fun to go online and find the old newspaper archives.  I don't know if anyone's ever tried those Boston Globe has a great 1 through the Boston Public Library it's free if you get a library card and there's other ones on Cape Cod, the Barnstable patriot, Falmouth enterprise, Provincetown advocate, they've all got online newspaper archives and I'm addicted to those.

So this was my second of 3 straight weeks of doing a podcast trying to see how that goes as far as workload so tune in next week when we'll have another new episode of the podcast episode 8 where we will take a look back at Cape cod's own television station TV 58 for any children of the 80's you might remember that. We'll take a road trip up to the beautiful town of Lincoln, New Hampshire.  I'll go back in the day for real this time and look at the music of 1991 and how that affected and defined who I was and who a lot of people of my generation are and we'll do another episode of this week in history which among other things will include the Beatles legendary last performance ever on the rooftop of their studio.

Everybody stay safe out there remember the Covid pandemic is not over we're hopefully getting close to getting over that hump with all the vaccines hopefully coming to everyone within the next few months but I just had a close call just in the last week or so where a friend had someone that he worked with had the virus and so because of that contact tracing I had to take a full week off from working both jobs that I do and basically was on lockdown for 99 percent of the time of this past week. It's scary because you never know you may be asymptomatic the thing is just be patient. Hopefully god knows we've been dealing with this for almost a year and I'm hoping that we're almost done.  I don't care as much about going to the bars or going to sporting events my main thing is I just want to be able to visit my family and not worry about this pandemic. That's the thing that I've realized that I've missed the most is just going to see my mother, my sisters, my brother, my nieces and nephews, my grandmother at the retirement home she's at. So everybody just hang in there we've got to be getting close until then I'll be here continuing to do these podcasts as a distraction for myself and hopefully a distraction and some entertainment for all of you out there. 

Thank you again so much to all of you that have listened that have shared it that have sent me positive feedback I really do appreciate it. Remember on this road of life don't follow in anyone's footsteps create your own path and enjoy every moment you can go on this journey I'll talk to you again soon take care everyone.