# Did That Really Happen?

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 17 Dec 2024, 1 h 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/63125024/podcast776_didthatreallyhappen.mp3

It has been said that truth is stranger than fiction. Whatever the case, this week's show is about real people doing real things...and their stories are pretty incredible. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not
[0:22] Speaker 1: because I put my hand on a book and made
[0:24] Speaker 1: a wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness, Truth, fusion,
[0:32] Speaker 2: wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 2: If I can beg your indulgence, today's show is going
[0:59] Speaker 2: to allow me to take a little bit of a
[1:01] Speaker 2: holiday vacation and spend some more time with my family.
[1:05] Speaker 2: So rather than go in and prepare all the new material,
[1:08] Speaker 2: I have gone back and grab some older material. This
[1:12] Speaker 2: is actually from my true Stories channel, and I've just
[1:17] Speaker 2: hand selected some fascinating short form stories. They run between
[1:22] Speaker 2: I don't know five and eight minutes long, a lot
[1:24] Speaker 2: of history and very often a twist ending. So if
[1:28] Speaker 2: you've already heard these but forgotten them, it'll be like
[1:32] Speaker 2: a new thing, right And if you are familiar, you
[1:35] Speaker 2: can just skip forward five, six, seven minutes and the
[1:38] Speaker 2: next one should be fresh for you. And if you
[1:41] Speaker 2: haven't subscribed, it's True Stories with Seth Andrews on all
[1:46] Speaker 2: major podcasts apps We've got. I think I'm coming up
[1:49] Speaker 2: on three hundred and sixty shows so far, and I
[1:54] Speaker 2: have learned a lot. You know, there are some celebrity shows,
[1:59] Speaker 2: and there're some interesting trivia, dumb criminals and that kind
[2:04] Speaker 2: of thing, But I think some of the ones that
[2:06] Speaker 2: really resonate with me are the ones where I'm learning
[2:09] Speaker 2: something about history that I never knew and it sounds
[2:11] Speaker 2: lame when I say it like that it's a history lesson,
[2:15] Speaker 2: but you're like, did that really happen? Is this the
[2:18] Speaker 2: origin of that thing? Why did I not know this?
[2:22] Speaker 2: Why did my teachers never teach this? And you're going
[2:26] Speaker 2: to hear a few of those on the broadcast, just
[2:28] Speaker 2: one after the other. Eleven total stories. Thank you so
[2:33] Speaker 2: much for allowing me to assemble these for you so
[2:36] Speaker 2: that I might have a little extra time to spend
[2:39] Speaker 2: the holiday with my family. So grank it up, buckle up,
[2:43] Speaker 2: and here we go. I'm not a drinker, not a
[2:55] Speaker 2: big fan of drunk people, but I do have to
[2:58] Speaker 2: sit back in awe of those who can just knock
[3:02] Speaker 2: back the alcohol like it's candy. Now, most of us
[3:07] Speaker 2: have been to a wild party where the booze was
[3:10] Speaker 2: really flowing, and most of us have stories that go
[3:13] Speaker 2: along with those parties. Well, I want to tell you
[3:16] Speaker 2: the story of one particular kegger that became one for
[3:22] Speaker 2: the books. It's a Friday night. The place is called
[3:25] Speaker 2: City Tavern, and a group of guys got together no
[3:29] Speaker 2: fewer than fifty five men plus nine musicians and seven
[3:35] Speaker 2: weight staff. This was quite a party, I mean, and
[3:37] Speaker 2: even the waiters got in on the bender. They were
[3:41] Speaker 2: drinking as well. It was supposed to be a work night.
[3:46] Speaker 2: These men were all co workers, But how much work
[3:49] Speaker 2: could you actually get done pouring through boxes of paperwork
[3:53] Speaker 2: while you are running up the following bar tab specifically,
[4:00] Speaker 2: fifty six bottles of Madeira wine, sixty bottles of claret,
[4:05] Speaker 2: twenty two bottles of porter, twelve bottles of beer, nine
[4:11] Speaker 2: bottles of cider, and seven large bowls of alcoholic punch.
[4:16] Speaker 2: Holy cow, that is a lot to imbibe, and it
[4:21] Speaker 2: doesn't include the musicians and the waiters. They ran up
[4:24] Speaker 2: their own separate liquor bill. They had an additional twenty
[4:28] Speaker 2: one bottles of wine. It was such a wild, intoxicated
[4:33] Speaker 2: binge drinking bash that somebody actually kept the receipt, the
[4:38] Speaker 2: itemized bill from City Tavern. They did the math adjusting
[4:43] Speaker 2: for today's dollars. Just for the men supposed to be
[4:46] Speaker 2: working that Friday night, more than forty five gallons of
[4:50] Speaker 2: booze were served, which would today be a barred tab
[4:56] Speaker 2: of over seventeen thousand dollars. Now, not everybody got drunk.
[5:03] Speaker 2: They may have had a few SIPs here or there,
[5:06] Speaker 2: but they kept their dignity and sobriety. But this party
[5:10] Speaker 2: was so epic that the receipt is preserved even today,
[5:16] Speaker 2: over two centuries after it happened, discovered first in a
[5:20] Speaker 2: box of documents by a professor, a guy named Gordon
[5:24] Speaker 2: Lloyd of Pepperdine University. He found it and he posted
[5:28] Speaker 2: it publicly in digital form. You could actually see the
[5:31] Speaker 2: receipt for the party on the internet today. Okay, why
[5:36] Speaker 2: should we care so much about a two hundred and
[5:39] Speaker 2: fifty year old drinking party. Maybe it has something to
[5:44] Speaker 2: do with the attendees, Those fifty five guys at City
[5:49] Speaker 2: Tavern in Pennsylvania, some of those men with names like Washington,
[5:59] Speaker 2: Jefferson Franklin, America's founding fathers, working after hours on a
[6:08] Speaker 2: Friday night at a restaurant pub in seventeen eighty seven,
[6:13] Speaker 2: and the job they were working on was no kidding
[6:19] Speaker 2: the United States Constitution. Dave Carroll was angry at the airline,
[6:37] Speaker 2: and he had a good reason. This was back in
[6:40] Speaker 2: March of two thousand and eight. Dave was traveling with
[6:43] Speaker 2: his folk rock band called the Sons of Maxwell. He
[6:48] Speaker 2: had just arrived in Chicago from Canada on his way
[6:52] Speaker 2: to Nebraska for a tour. It was the last leg
[6:56] Speaker 2: of the journey it would be on United Airlines. So
[7:02] Speaker 2: Dave was at the gate in Chicago, standing there with
[7:05] Speaker 2: the other passengers, watching with increasing alarm and concern through
[7:11] Speaker 2: the window as the baggage handlers were loading the plane.
[7:17] Speaker 2: The baggage vehicle rolled up, Employees grabbed passenger luggage and
[7:22] Speaker 2: then carelessly with abandon just chucked every piece onto the
[7:28] Speaker 2: conveyor belt. And of course one of those bags belonged
[7:33] Speaker 2: to Dave Carroll. It was his guitar case. Well, everybody
[7:38] Speaker 2: finally boarded that United flight landed at its destination, and
[7:44] Speaker 2: big surprise that guitar was damaged. As you can expect,
[7:50] Speaker 2: Dave was pretty upset and he took his complaint to
[7:54] Speaker 2: the airline. Hey, your people broke my twelve hundred dollars
[7:58] Speaker 2: tailored guitar. You need to do the right thing here
[8:02] Speaker 2: and compensate me. Now. I know that airline workers do
[8:07] Speaker 2: a difficult job, and I know that a lot of
[8:10] Speaker 2: airline employees are at the mercy of the higher ups.
[8:16] Speaker 2: But having said that, we have all found ourselves frustrated
[8:19] Speaker 2: when the airlines complicate our lives. Many of us know
[8:24] Speaker 2: what it's like to stand there at customer service and
[8:27] Speaker 2: feel helpless, like we are at the world's worst DMV,
[8:33] Speaker 2: like nobody really cares. We're never going to get our
[8:36] Speaker 2: problems solved, and Dave Carroll got passed around the system.
[8:42] Speaker 2: United Airlines bounced him from one agent to the next agent,
[8:46] Speaker 2: to the next agent, and finally they instructed him to
[8:51] Speaker 2: bring the broken guitar back to Chicago for inspection. Yeah,
[8:57] Speaker 2: after David jumped through all of the hoops, the airline
[9:02] Speaker 2: ultimately denied his claim. Well, this musician was so frustrated
[9:08] Speaker 2: that he wrote a letter to United and he told
[9:12] Speaker 2: them that he was going to write and release a
[9:15] Speaker 2: song about the whole debacle. And he was true to
[9:20] Speaker 2: his word, and he posted his song with a video
[9:24] Speaker 2: that is viewable even today on the Sons of Maxwell
[9:29] Speaker 2: YouTube page. The song title United Breaks Guitars and I
[9:38] Speaker 2: know you aren't just dying to hear a clip from
[9:42] Speaker 2: that tune, so I will oblige.
[9:45] Speaker 3: Unite you wron unite who you are.
[10:02] Speaker 2: You've broken you should fix it.
[10:05] Speaker 3: Your libel just admitted I should have phoned with someone
[10:09] Speaker 3: else for gone by car because un race guitars.
[10:21] Speaker 2: Now here's the funny part. Dave's complaint song went viral,
[10:26] Speaker 2: Like immediately went viral. This was not good publicity for
[10:31] Speaker 2: United Airlines, and within just a few days they reached
[10:35] Speaker 2: out to Dave to offer compensation. Dave responded, keep your money,
[10:42] Speaker 2: give it to charity or something. Now these days, Dave
[10:47] Speaker 2: Carol is no longer angry. He was actually interviewed by
[10:51] Speaker 2: the Guardian just one year after the incident. He said
[10:55] Speaker 2: the song was fun to record. He expressed gratitude that
[10:59] Speaker 2: you United Airlines had inadvertently given him an outlet where
[11:04] Speaker 2: he could sing his frustration and bring weary travelers from
[11:10] Speaker 2: all over the world together to enjoy a moment of
[11:13] Speaker 2: levity after that moment of calamity. It's amazing what happens
[11:20] Speaker 2: when people get creative to solve their problems. Your voice
[11:24] Speaker 2: might feel lost in the cacophony of the system, but
[11:29] Speaker 2: when you sing the song and strike the nerve, you
[11:34] Speaker 2: might be more powerful than you think. Are you a
[11:48] Speaker 2: movie buff or at least a frequent movie goer, or
[11:53] Speaker 2: do you watch a lot of television. Well, the next
[11:56] Speaker 2: time you are viewing, I want you to keep your
[11:58] Speaker 2: sonar up and be listening, because there is a sound
[12:03] Speaker 2: that you may have heard hundreds of times and never
[12:07] Speaker 2: actually noticed. It is this stock sound effect. You and
[12:15] Speaker 2: I already know that much of film and television sound
[12:19] Speaker 2: is added in post production, and there are sound effects
[12:23] Speaker 2: libraries that have thousands and thousands of options whatever you need.
[12:27] Speaker 2: Crowd noise, card tires, squealing, gunshots, birds chirping in the trees,
[12:34] Speaker 2: even shoes walking on grass. And throughout cinema history, sound
[12:39] Speaker 2: designers have always been on the hunt for a really
[12:42] Speaker 2: good scream. And so we traveled back in time to
[12:47] Speaker 2: nineteen fifty one. There's a movie Western called Distant Drums,
[12:52] Speaker 2: and in that film is a tense scene. Soldiers are
[12:56] Speaker 2: on the run from seminole Indians. They're wading through swamp
[13:00] Speaker 2: in the Everglades and the water is up to their
[13:03] Speaker 2: chest and suddenly one of the soldiers gets dragged under
[13:07] Speaker 2: the water by an alligator, and when the gator bites him,
[13:12] Speaker 2: the soldier screams, and the voice that was dubbed in
[13:18] Speaker 2: for that scream was said to come from an actor
[13:21] Speaker 2: named SHEB Woolley. And for that yell, shev didn't even
[13:26] Speaker 2: get a film credit. Well, Warner Brothers needed sounds for
[13:31] Speaker 2: their own stock library. Producing sounds from scratch was much
[13:36] Speaker 2: more expensive than just going and grabbing something that was
[13:39] Speaker 2: already on file. And this brings us to nineteen fifty
[13:43] Speaker 2: three and another big screen Western, a movie called The
[13:47] Speaker 2: Charge at Feather River, and there's a character his name
[13:52] Speaker 2: is Private Wilhelm. Private Wilhelm gets shot in the thigh
[13:57] Speaker 2: with an arrow and for that, once again the producers
[14:01] Speaker 2: needed a really good scream, and so they browsed through
[14:05] Speaker 2: the Warner Brothers library and there it was, and it
[14:10] Speaker 2: was perfect. It was at this point that somebody actually
[14:16] Speaker 2: gave this sound the name. They named it the Wilhelm
[14:20] Speaker 2: Scream after that character in the movie Private Wilhelm. Such
[14:24] Speaker 2: a distinct yell and useful and cheap. Warner Brothers used
[14:31] Speaker 2: it twice the following year, in A Star Is Born
[14:35] Speaker 2: and the horror film Them. Then in nineteen fifty five
[14:39] Speaker 2: it was used in Land of the Pharaohs and The
[14:42] Speaker 2: Sea Chase. The scream remained popular into the nineteen sixties
[14:47] Speaker 2: with The Wild Bunch and the Green Berets. But oh no,
[14:51] Speaker 2: Hollywood was not done with Private Wilhelm yet. Listen carefully
[14:57] Speaker 2: to Star Wars Episode four, the film that started the
[15:02] Speaker 2: entire franchise, and there's a scene where a storm trooper
[15:05] Speaker 2: falls and there is the Wilhelm scream. Two years after that,
[15:14] Speaker 2: it was included in the American Graffiti sequel. Into the eighties, nineties,
[15:19] Speaker 2: two thousands, everything from Willow, Grimlins, Die Hard with a Vengeance,
[15:24] Speaker 2: Beauty and the Beast, Poltergeist, Lethal Weapon four, the Fifth Element,
[15:30] Speaker 2: all of the Indiana Jones movies, and I'm not even
[15:35] Speaker 2: close to being done. Private Wilhelm continues to scream in
[15:39] Speaker 2: toy story, Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar, Kung Fu Panda,
[15:45] Speaker 2: Deadpool two, Lord of the Rings, and the entire Marvel
[15:49] Speaker 2: cinematic universe, and I haven't even gotten into TV yet
[15:54] Speaker 2: because it has been included in hundreds of shows from
[15:58] Speaker 2: the Boys to The s Umsons to Breaking Bad. The
[16:02] Speaker 2: Wilhelm scream has become part of a collection of original
[16:06] Speaker 2: sound effects which was donated to the USC School of
[16:10] Speaker 2: Cinematic Arts. It is a legitimate and celebrated piece of
[16:15] Speaker 2: American film history, that sound, that yell from a nineteen
[16:20] Speaker 2: fifty one movie extra who was denied so much as
[16:25] Speaker 2: a name in small print on the movie credits. Now,
[16:30] Speaker 2: I said that the man behind the Wilhelm scream has
[16:34] Speaker 2: never been totally verified, but film historians have done a
[16:39] Speaker 2: lot of digging and they say that it is likely
[16:42] Speaker 2: that this bit part player, this voice actor in post production.
[16:47] Speaker 2: The man chev Woolley does deserve the credits, and this
[16:52] Speaker 2: guy had done some acting mostly though it was just
[16:57] Speaker 2: voice acting. He did pick up lines when her movie
[17:00] Speaker 2: studios needed something specific in post not even a film actor.
[17:05] Speaker 2: He was a voice dubbed in for another voice, which
[17:11] Speaker 2: makes sense, I suppose since back in the nineteen fifties, SEB.
[17:17] Speaker 2: Woolley was known for his voice, but not as an actor.
[17:23] Speaker 2: He was known as a singer he's the guy who
[17:27] Speaker 2: sang the nineteen fifty eight novelty classic Purple People Eater.
[17:38] Speaker 2: Right now, parents are singing the song in their heads
[17:42] Speaker 2: while their kids are scratching their heads. Come on, go
[17:46] Speaker 2: listen to the song, the one eyed, one horned Flying
[17:49] Speaker 2: Purple People Eater. And then next time you're at the movies,
[17:53] Speaker 2: keep your ears wide open. You just might hear the
[17:57] Speaker 2: famous Wilhelm scream. And that's a true story. Did you
[18:09] Speaker 2: ever hear that story about the guy who tied a
[18:12] Speaker 2: bunch of helium balloons to a lawn chair and then
[18:15] Speaker 2: he just went for a ride, like he's floating in
[18:18] Speaker 2: the atmosphere. I always thought that was a myth, right,
[18:22] Speaker 2: that's an old legend. It's a funny story that we
[18:24] Speaker 2: tell that never happened. Oh No, In my research, I
[18:30] Speaker 2: found out about this guy and I did a story
[18:34] Speaker 2: on him. And we're going to hear about lawn chair
[18:37] Speaker 2: Larry after the break, continuing my sort of holiday show,
[18:49] Speaker 2: a smattering of short form true stories to entertain you
[18:54] Speaker 2: this Christmas season. There are no surprises at the end
[19:09] Speaker 2: of this one. I think the story itself should be plenty.
[19:14] Speaker 2: This is the wild, weird tale of Larry Walters, the
[19:20] Speaker 2: man who took a ride into the sky. That is
[19:23] Speaker 2: almost impossible to believe. Now, Larry had always wanted to
[19:29] Speaker 2: be a pilot. He tried to join the Air Force
[19:31] Speaker 2: back in the seventies. He was rejected because of his eyesight.
[19:35] Speaker 2: He just couldn't see very well, but he would not
[19:39] Speaker 2: give up on his dream of flights. In fact, back
[19:43] Speaker 2: when he was a teenager, he used to fantasize about
[19:46] Speaker 2: this specific scenario, an alternative way to surf the skies.
[19:52] Speaker 2: And then finally, when Larry was thirty three, he decided
[19:56] Speaker 2: it was time to take that childhood fantasy and make
[19:59] Speaker 2: it reality. And here's what he did. The year was
[20:03] Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two. Larry and his then girlfriend started construction
[20:10] Speaker 2: on a homemade aircraft. No fuselage, no wings, no engine.
[20:16] Speaker 2: Larry's aircraft was a lawn chair. But how do you
[20:22] Speaker 2: get a lawn chair to fly? He needed lift, and
[20:25] Speaker 2: so he purchased forty five weather balloons that he would
[20:29] Speaker 2: then tether to the chair. Now this was going to
[20:32] Speaker 2: look suspicious. Who walks into his store and says, hey,
[20:35] Speaker 2: I would like forty five weather balloons. Someone's going to
[20:38] Speaker 2: take notice. And so Larry lied. His employer was a film,
[20:43] Speaker 2: TV and media production studio called film Flare, and he
[20:48] Speaker 2: grabbed a blank requisition form and he forged some important details,
[20:53] Speaker 2: and then he went in to a balloon and helium
[20:56] Speaker 2: cellar and said, hey, we need props for an upcoming
[20:59] Speaker 2: television commercial and it's for my company, film Flare. And
[21:05] Speaker 2: they bought this lie and they sold him everything he needed,
[21:09] Speaker 2: which meant lawn Chair Larry could set his way into
[21:13] Speaker 2: the heavens with the balloons and the tethers and the
[21:16] Speaker 2: helium and a parachute. He also carried a camera, a
[21:21] Speaker 2: Cbee radio, a sandwich, some beer, and a pellet gun. Yes,
[21:30] Speaker 2: a pellet gun, you see. Helium would make the ascent
[21:33] Speaker 2: no problem, but I mean at some point he was
[21:36] Speaker 2: going to have to stop going up, especially given the
[21:40] Speaker 2: conditions way up there, lack of oxygen, the temperatures are
[21:44] Speaker 2: sub freezing. Who knows what else could happen at high altitude.
[21:49] Speaker 2: So when he reached a certain threshold, the plan was
[21:52] Speaker 2: to pull out the pellet gun and start popping the
[21:56] Speaker 2: weather balloons to level him off and then allow him
[21:59] Speaker 2: to drift. Okay. Launch day the second of July nineteen
[22:05] Speaker 2: eighty two. Larry Walters at his home at sixteen forty
[22:09] Speaker 2: four West seventh Street in San Pedro, Los Angeles. There
[22:13] Speaker 2: he was, and he took the chair and he tethered
[22:16] Speaker 2: on the unfilled balloons, and then he tethered that chair.
[22:20] Speaker 2: He roped it to his jeep to make sure he
[22:24] Speaker 2: wouldn't fly away prematurely, and because he wanted time to
[22:28] Speaker 2: contact the authorities. Like the whole plan was to tell
[22:32] Speaker 2: air traffic control, Hey, I am launching. You might want
[22:36] Speaker 2: to tell aircraft flying around where I am and what's
[22:41] Speaker 2: going on, because you know, nobody wants to become a
[22:44] Speaker 2: kind of roadkill in the sky. I mean, beyond accidental
[22:49] Speaker 2: impact with another plane. Imagine if the military activated fighter
[22:54] Speaker 2: jets and shot him down with a missile or something.
[22:56] Speaker 2: So he did want to be upfront about all this,
[22:59] Speaker 2: and so they filled the helium balloons. But before they
[23:02] Speaker 2: could do the final checks, that rope to his jeep snapped,
[23:07] Speaker 2: and prematurely, Larry's homemade chair craft rose up and up
[23:14] Speaker 2: like a phoenix. At the moment of that unexpected premature launch,
[23:20] Speaker 2: the jolt knocked Larry's eyeglasses off of his face. They
[23:24] Speaker 2: just fell down to the ground. Larry's girlfriend, Carol was
[23:28] Speaker 2: talking to him on the CB. She panicked saw him
[23:32] Speaker 2: rise up into the clouds. She wanted to abort. Check
[23:35] Speaker 2: out this actual audio from their radio conversation. Come down,
[23:42] Speaker 2: you gotta come down. If you can't see coming down,
[23:45] Speaker 2: I've got my other classes. I can see perfectly.
[23:47] Speaker 1: Don't worry you copy yourr I copy.
[23:51] Speaker 2: Are you sure you okay to see there? You came here?
[23:54] Speaker 3: Are you okay?
[23:55] Speaker 1: I may okay. I'm going through a sinful lay.
[23:57] Speaker 2: Or my Autoito's one thousand, five hundred marie le right
[24:01] Speaker 2: now he do that? Oh my god, you're going hercutionary
[24:09] Speaker 2: Get down now, you come down. Everyone watch down now.
[24:14] Speaker 2: And here he was Larry in a floating chair in
[24:18] Speaker 2: Federal airspace, rising up a thousand feet five thousand feet
[24:24] Speaker 2: ten thousand feet, up and up and higher and higher
[24:30] Speaker 2: until finally, at a freezing sixteen thousand feet after forty
[24:36] Speaker 2: five minutes of flight or float, I guess he was floating.
[24:41] Speaker 2: Larry pulled out his trusty pellet gun and he started
[24:44] Speaker 2: strategically taking out the balloons. He leveled off, began to
[24:50] Speaker 2: lose altitude, and then Larry accidentally dropped his pellet gun,
[24:59] Speaker 2: so he's it's totally out of control, as you would
[25:02] Speaker 2: expect in this scenario. It's not like the craft can
[25:05] Speaker 2: be steered. But this backyard balloon daredevil went down and
[25:10] Speaker 2: down and down toward the earth into Long Beach, California,
[25:15] Speaker 2: crashing into a power line. The line snapped it dumped
[25:20] Speaker 2: him onto the ground. He was unharmed. The whole neighborhood
[25:23] Speaker 2: lost power for about a half an hour. Now, when
[25:26] Speaker 2: Larry stood up, unscathed from his amazing and historic flights,
[25:32] Speaker 2: was he greeted with cameras and smiles and high fives
[25:36] Speaker 2: for his great accomplishment. He was not waiting on the
[25:42] Speaker 2: ground was the Long Beach Police Department, And the problem was, ultimately,
[25:48] Speaker 2: nobody knew how to charge him, Like what specific law
[25:51] Speaker 2: had he broken. There wasn't anything on the books that
[25:54] Speaker 2: covered this. He wasn't even a pilot, so it's not
[25:57] Speaker 2: like they could revoke his pilot's Ultimately, he got off
[26:03] Speaker 2: with a kind of slap on the wrist. He paid
[26:05] Speaker 2: a reduced fine of about fifteen hundred dollars for operating
[26:09] Speaker 2: an air craft without permission. I think fifteen hundred bucks
[26:13] Speaker 2: is a small price to pay to become a legends,
[26:18] Speaker 2: and Larry did get his fifteen minutes of fame. A
[26:22] Speaker 2: few days after his stunt, he was a guest on
[26:24] Speaker 2: the David Letterman show. Time x Watches featured his story
[26:29] Speaker 2: on one of their print advertisements. He even did a
[26:32] Speaker 2: short stint on the circuit as a motivational speaker. The
[26:36] Speaker 2: Darwin Awards gave him an award. Now I know he survived,
[26:41] Speaker 2: but they gave him a special award called at Risk Survivor.
[26:46] Speaker 2: And yet, unfortunately, I must tell you that Larry's personal
[26:51] Speaker 2: story would end tragically more than a decade after his flight.
[26:57] Speaker 2: The literal heights that he had achieved in his life
[27:00] Speaker 2: sadly could not heal the personal lows in his heart.
[27:05] Speaker 2: Larry took his own life on the sixth of October
[27:07] Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, at the age of forty four, eleven
[27:11] Speaker 2: years after he had taken that balloon ride to the sky.
[27:15] Speaker 2: But Larry's story lives on, and the chair itself has
[27:20] Speaker 2: become a piece of flight history. It was ultimately donated
[27:25] Speaker 2: to the Smithsonian and it sits on display right now
[27:29] Speaker 2: at the Stephen f Udvar Hazy Center in Virginia. And
[27:34] Speaker 2: of course, every legendary aircraft needs a name. This particular
[27:39] Speaker 2: vehicle has been dubbed Inspiration one. And perhaps we can
[27:44] Speaker 2: all take inspiration from this man who refused to be grounded.
[27:50] Speaker 2: A man who embarked on one of the strangest journeys
[27:53] Speaker 2: of the twentieth century. A man who took a chair,
[27:57] Speaker 2: a cbe, a pellet gun, a sand which, and some
[28:01] Speaker 2: beer up into the heavens, leisurely drifting in the winds,
[28:07] Speaker 2: gazing down at the coastline, and writing his name into
[28:12] Speaker 2: the history books from his lawn chair three miles high
[28:20] Speaker 2: in the sky. John Donahue went to Vietnam, and he
[28:40] Speaker 2: wasn't supposed to be there. In fact, the United States
[28:44] Speaker 2: military didn't even know he was there. Here is what happened.
[28:50] Speaker 2: John was better known to his friends by a nickname.
[28:53] Speaker 2: They called him Chicky, and Chicky Donahue had served in
[28:58] Speaker 2: the Marine Corps from nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty four.
[29:01] Speaker 2: He became a merchant seaman and one day he was
[29:05] Speaker 2: just hanging out that one of his favorite New York
[29:07] Speaker 2: City bars, and he was sitting there talking to the bartender.
[29:12] Speaker 2: The bartender himself was a former gi He called himself
[29:16] Speaker 2: Colonel Lynch. He hadn't actually been a colonel, but that's
[29:21] Speaker 2: what people called him, Colonel Lynch, and he was angry.
[29:27] Speaker 2: Remember this is nineteen sixty seven. The Vietnam War well underway,
[29:32] Speaker 2: and soldiers and support personnel were getting drafted and wounded
[29:36] Speaker 2: and killed on the battlefield. And then Colonel Lynch would
[29:41] Speaker 2: look out his New York City windows and there would
[29:44] Speaker 2: be those Vietnam War protesters. The whole thing just made
[29:49] Speaker 2: his blood boil. His own friends and neighbors were across
[29:54] Speaker 2: the ocean bleeding and dying, and yet these demonstrators had
[29:59] Speaker 2: the gall to our chin protest. Here Colonel Lynch stood
[30:04] Speaker 2: behind the bar, cursing the whole thing, and he looked
[30:07] Speaker 2: at Chicky and he said, you know, I'd like to
[30:10] Speaker 2: go over there, just go to Vietnam and track down
[30:14] Speaker 2: those boys from my neighborhood and buy them all a beer.
[30:19] Speaker 2: And Chicky looked back and he said, all right, I
[30:23] Speaker 2: can do that. I'm sorry. Chicky was going to travel
[30:29] Speaker 2: more than eight thousand miles from New York to Vietnam
[30:33] Speaker 2: on a beer run. Yes, And here began one of
[30:39] Speaker 2: the most bizarre journeys of the twentieth century. John Chicky Donahue.
[30:45] Speaker 2: He just decided he was going to go to Vietnam
[30:48] Speaker 2: to hand out beer to four specific men. Now he
[30:53] Speaker 2: wasn't actively serving in the military, but he did know
[30:56] Speaker 2: the system, he knew the lingo, he knew how the
[30:59] Speaker 2: military he worked, and so he sported an important looking mustache.
[31:05] Speaker 2: Remember that the military didn't allow facial hair, so apparently
[31:09] Speaker 2: people saw him and just assumed he was some kind
[31:12] Speaker 2: of higher up, and even when he was pressed about
[31:15] Speaker 2: who he was, he would just respond, I'm a merchant mariner.
[31:20] Speaker 2: And nobody questioned him after that, possibly because they had
[31:24] Speaker 2: no idea what a merchant mariner actually was. John got
[31:28] Speaker 2: himself a job in the engine room of an ammunition
[31:31] Speaker 2: ship that was heading to Vietnam. This was a month
[31:35] Speaker 2: long journey, and Chikey had bought himself a duffel bag
[31:39] Speaker 2: full of beer cans. Now, the problem was that's a
[31:44] Speaker 2: long journey, thirty days, and Chicky liked beer. He would
[31:51] Speaker 2: later admit that he himself on that trip had drank
[31:55] Speaker 2: over sixty cans of beer and by the time the
[31:59] Speaker 2: ship docked, his duffel was looking kind of saggy. But
[32:03] Speaker 2: never fear, Chickie found some enlisted men's clubs, and he
[32:08] Speaker 2: requisitioned more, and then he embarked on his impossible journey,
[32:15] Speaker 2: a personal journey. Sometimes John found himself running for his life,
[32:20] Speaker 2: escaping enemy ambushes, sleeping in foxholes. The war was becoming
[32:25] Speaker 2: a close up experience. He was realizing just how dumb
[32:29] Speaker 2: and dangerous his stunt really was. And as he was
[32:34] Speaker 2: there dodging the bullets while soldiers all around him did not,
[32:38] Speaker 2: John's perspective on the war began to change. She'd arrived
[32:42] Speaker 2: with blind duty to country, but John would leave distrustful
[32:47] Speaker 2: and angry about the lies, the waste, the politics masquerading
[32:53] Speaker 2: as a fight for freedom. He arrived pro war, he
[32:57] Speaker 2: left antie. But of course he was there in Vietnam,
[33:03] Speaker 2: and he was a man on a mission, and he
[33:06] Speaker 2: was very, very clever. He managed to work his way
[33:09] Speaker 2: around the country through the system looking for these four guys,
[33:14] Speaker 2: and he would smooth talk his way onto a military plane.
[33:18] Speaker 2: He would slide himself onto road convoys, riding on the trucks,
[33:23] Speaker 2: and believe it or not, against all of the odds,
[33:27] Speaker 2: Chicky found and delivered beer from his duffel bag to
[33:33] Speaker 2: all four of Colonel Lynch's neighbor friends the soldiers Tommy Collins,
[33:39] Speaker 2: Bobby Pappis, Rick Duggan, and Kevin mcloon. I mean, just
[33:45] Speaker 2: imagine it. Chickie Donahue walks up and says, hey, your friend,
[33:49] Speaker 2: Colonel Lynch wanted me to bring you some beer. Can
[33:54] Speaker 2: you even imagine? And then, of course, after that the
[33:58] Speaker 2: mission was done. As the guns blasted and the bombs fell,
[34:02] Speaker 2: Chicky managed to get himself back out of Vietnam. He
[34:07] Speaker 2: left uninjured, but he did leave a changed man. Now
[34:13] Speaker 2: what in the world would motivate somebody to enter a
[34:16] Speaker 2: faraway war zone with a duffel bag of beer. Chicky
[34:21] Speaker 2: did a reunion interview with CBS News. He actually sat
[34:25] Speaker 2: next to the other four men reunited after decades, and
[34:30] Speaker 2: he said this before the cameras. He said, quote, I
[34:33] Speaker 2: did the right thing. I was letting these kids die
[34:37] Speaker 2: without me helping them, and that's what I wanted to do.
[34:42] Speaker 2: This story was actually made into a feature film in
[34:45] Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. The movie was not well reviewed. It
[34:49] Speaker 2: was not well received, but the real life story has
[34:53] Speaker 2: passed the test of time. The real accounts of John
[34:58] Speaker 2: Chicky Dona Hugh, the man who braved possible death to
[35:03] Speaker 2: bring some cold brew, desperately needed goodwill, and just a
[35:09] Speaker 2: little taste of home. The due date for the baby
[35:31] Speaker 2: was in late October of nineteen sixty seven. This was Smyrna, Georgia,
[35:36] Speaker 2: the suburb of Atlanta. The parents were poor. They could
[35:40] Speaker 2: not afford the hospital bill, but that bill would be
[35:46] Speaker 2: paid by none other than civil rights activists Coretta Scott
[35:51] Speaker 2: King and Martin Luther King Junior. And here is the
[35:57] Speaker 2: story of how these legendary figures would come to do
[36:01] Speaker 2: such a wonderful thing. The new parents were Walter and
[36:05] Speaker 2: Betty Lou and they were theater people, I mean the
[36:09] Speaker 2: starving artist actors turned playwrights. They'd actually met touring in
[36:14] Speaker 2: the theater for the US Armed Forces, and then they
[36:18] Speaker 2: would go on to co found the Atlanta Actors and
[36:21] Speaker 2: Writers Workshop and run a children's theater school. But talk
[36:27] Speaker 2: about struggling artists, I mean people in the theater world
[36:31] Speaker 2: will tell you all the stories about sleeping on the
[36:34] Speaker 2: floor and the unpaid bills and the broken down cars,
[36:38] Speaker 2: and the stretching of every grocery dollar, the sacrifices made
[36:42] Speaker 2: for their art. But when you love something, as actors,
[36:47] Speaker 2: love acting and directors love directing. As Walter and Betty
[36:52] Speaker 2: Lou loved the theater, money and status often become secondary considerations,
[37:00] Speaker 2: and Betty Lou was becoming more and more pregnant throughout
[37:04] Speaker 2: those months. In mid nineteen sixty seven, they faced this
[37:07] Speaker 2: looming financial challenge, how will we pay for the delivery
[37:12] Speaker 2: of this child? Now, this is where some might say
[37:15] Speaker 2: that fate stepped in the stars aligned, so to speak. Remember,
[37:21] Speaker 2: they had this children's theater program. Coreta King had called
[37:25] Speaker 2: Betty Lou at the school and she said, my young
[37:30] Speaker 2: children are having a hard time finding a place that
[37:33] Speaker 2: will have them. Remember this was the late nineteen sixties,
[37:37] Speaker 2: with racial tensions and legal fights and segregation laws and
[37:41] Speaker 2: riots in the streets suffocating the United States and a
[37:45] Speaker 2: haze of bigotry in the fight for human rights, and
[37:48] Speaker 2: the King family at the front of it all, and
[37:50] Speaker 2: their children were looking for a place to go to school. Well,
[37:54] Speaker 2: Betty Lou said, Hey, fine, I'm glad you called welcome. Yes,
[37:59] Speaker 2: bring the girls. They are more than welcome to attend.
[38:03] Speaker 2: And Walter himself served as acting coach for the young
[38:07] Speaker 2: Yolanda King in the only racially integrated theater troope in
[38:13] Speaker 2: the entire city of Atlanta. And it was a beautiful
[38:17] Speaker 2: and necessary thing. It was a moment of humanity with
[38:20] Speaker 2: a white couple and black family working together as teachers
[38:24] Speaker 2: and allies and friends. And then came that delivery date,
[38:29] Speaker 2: October twenty eighth, nineteen sixty seven. This financially strapped young
[38:33] Speaker 2: couple would rush to the hospital and see the birth
[38:37] Speaker 2: of this beautiful baby girl. And then they would receive
[38:42] Speaker 2: the beautiful gift of Coretta and Martin Luther King, who
[38:47] Speaker 2: stepped in and paid that hospital bill entirely. Now, I'm
[38:54] Speaker 2: sorry to say that this is not a fairy tale,
[38:57] Speaker 2: this is real life. Walter and Betty Lou would divorce
[39:01] Speaker 2: only four years later, and that acting school, the Theater
[39:06] Speaker 2: School for Children, would one day close its doors for
[39:09] Speaker 2: lack of funding. But Yolanda King would grow up to
[39:14] Speaker 2: be an actress and activist. She would do an interview
[39:18] Speaker 2: in two thousand and one with CN and she would
[39:21] Speaker 2: reflect and reminisce about those days that the children's theater,
[39:25] Speaker 2: about the teaching and the training, and the support and
[39:28] Speaker 2: love and goodness she received there, And she would remember
[39:32] Speaker 2: the young baby born in late October of nineteen sixty seven,
[39:37] Speaker 2: a baby named Julia, a baby born to perform, trained
[39:44] Speaker 2: by her own parents, beginning her long acting journey in
[39:49] Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, becoming a household name in nineteen ninety.
[39:55] Speaker 2: That Julia, whose delivery into this world was paid for
[40:00] Speaker 2: by civil rights icons Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther
[40:04] Speaker 2: King Junior, was none other than the pretty woman Darby Shaw,
[40:12] Speaker 2: the Runaway Bride, Aaron Brockovich, Heidi Bergmann, and so many
[40:18] Speaker 2: other big screen icons played by the actress Julia Roberts.
[40:40] Speaker 2: The term for it is moral panic, and moral panics
[40:45] Speaker 2: have been with humankind in some form throughout history. Moral
[40:51] Speaker 2: panic happens when people get hyper focused on a certain threat,
[40:55] Speaker 2: usually one that isn't really a big deal until the
[40:58] Speaker 2: media gets a hold of it, and then there's a
[41:01] Speaker 2: surge of hysteria before things cooled down, at least until
[41:06] Speaker 2: the next moral panic. In the twentieth century, alone prohibition
[41:11] Speaker 2: called alcohol a harmful vice. Elvis's gyrating legs were selling
[41:17] Speaker 2: sex to teenagers. Communists were infiltrating the government offices of
[41:23] Speaker 2: Free America. Rock music was of the devil, and today
[41:28] Speaker 2: we have all kinds of supposed devils that are coming
[41:31] Speaker 2: for polite society, from video games to vaccines to the
[41:36] Speaker 2: deep state. Probably the most famous moral panic in our
[41:40] Speaker 2: history books were the Salem witch trials back in sixteen
[41:45] Speaker 2: ninety two. But there was a fascinating fear that was
[41:49] Speaker 2: scaring whole cultures of people in the early eighteen hundreds
[41:54] Speaker 2: throughout Western Europe, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, even
[42:00] Speaker 2: in patches of the very young United States. There was
[42:04] Speaker 2: an addictive drug spreading like wildfire in cities, communities, private
[42:11] Speaker 2: homes not previously available to the commoners, those on lower incomes.
[42:18] Speaker 2: Only the wealthy classes were rich enough to indulge, and
[42:22] Speaker 2: they were the elites. But the commoners, nah, they couldn't
[42:27] Speaker 2: manage this drug, They couldn't understand how to use it.
[42:31] Speaker 2: They would not be able to control it, exposing the
[42:34] Speaker 2: everyman and every woman and their children to this narcotic
[42:40] Speaker 2: well that could crash polite society to the ground. And
[42:44] Speaker 2: it wasn't just rich people looking down and lamenting the
[42:48] Speaker 2: decline of civilization. Middle class parents were terrified about exposure
[42:53] Speaker 2: to their children. This inexpensive addiction could very likely rot
[42:58] Speaker 2: their brains and destroy their futures. Rumors abounded that this
[43:04] Speaker 2: drug was responsible for violent crime like murders, assaults, even
[43:09] Speaker 2: riots in the streets. Mom and dads read reports of
[43:12] Speaker 2: children who were getting lost in deluded hazes and taking
[43:17] Speaker 2: their own lives. One example from that time period was
[43:21] Speaker 2: the story printed in the New York Herald on the
[43:24] Speaker 2: fifth of July eighteen seventy five, a story about a
[43:27] Speaker 2: teenage serial killer named Jesse Pomeroy. Pomeroy had targeted and
[43:34] Speaker 2: murdered young children, but at his trial it was alleged
[43:38] Speaker 2: that his brain had been damaged and the culprit was
[43:42] Speaker 2: this drug, a substance and scourge that was ravaging not
[43:47] Speaker 2: just his brain but all the land. Oh yes, it
[43:51] Speaker 2: was moral panic. Clergy called it poison. Letters to newspaper
[43:56] Speaker 2: editors implored young people don't do it. It was kind
[44:01] Speaker 2: of a just say no campaign for the eighteen twenties.
[44:05] Speaker 2: And then, of course, those higher ups, the wealthy elites,
[44:09] Speaker 2: the power players, were looking down from their high balconies
[44:12] Speaker 2: as this drug, once expensive and exclusive and used only
[44:17] Speaker 2: in gilded mansions, was being sold for five cents on
[44:22] Speaker 2: everyday streets to the most common of citizens. And yet
[44:28] Speaker 2: this dangerous stimulant wasn't a pill, It was not a tonic.
[44:32] Speaker 2: It was nothing you would sniff or inject. The addictive
[44:36] Speaker 2: substance that so many were desperate to cloister for themselves.
[44:41] Speaker 2: The thing they feared might ignite the streets' infect brains
[44:46] Speaker 2: and turn the lower class against the ruling class was
[44:52] Speaker 2: the reading of books. Something formerly very expensive was suddenly not.
[45:00] Speaker 2: Books had previously been made in a hand assembled matrix,
[45:04] Speaker 2: coated with special ink, and pressed as pages one by
[45:09] Speaker 2: one before they were bound together. But here, centuries after
[45:14] Speaker 2: Gutenberg printed his first Bible, printing press technology had made
[45:19] Speaker 2: things faster and much cheaper. By eighteen sixty, books were
[45:23] Speaker 2: being printed on inexpensive wood pulp paper. The literary snobs
[45:29] Speaker 2: of that time insulted bad paper novels by calling them
[45:34] Speaker 2: pulp fiction, and yes, that's where the term came from.
[45:39] Speaker 2: A whole genre of cheaply made Gothic books were sold
[45:43] Speaker 2: for one cens and those were known as penny dreadfuls.
[45:47] Speaker 2: Some books were called yellowbacks because they were printed not
[45:52] Speaker 2: on paper but on pressed straw. No longer was the
[45:56] Speaker 2: written word sequestered from every day on. No longer could
[46:01] Speaker 2: the throne rooms and locked chambers restrain and control the
[46:06] Speaker 2: words and ideas pressed, printed and bound. Throughout our history,
[46:11] Speaker 2: the printed word has remained one of the most intoxicating,
[46:16] Speaker 2: brain expanding and dedictive drugs around. It frees the mind,
[46:23] Speaker 2: it fills the heart, it motivates the body, and just
[46:27] Speaker 2: a few hundred years ago, it was the book that
[46:31] Speaker 2: sent societies worldwide into moral panic, in no small way
[46:37] Speaker 2: because the few wanted to think for the many. As
[46:42] Speaker 2: the famous activist and journalist Margaret Fuller once said, today,
[46:47] Speaker 2: a reader tomorrow, a leader still to come, I've got
[46:57] Speaker 2: some deep thoughts for you. We're going to talk about
[47:00] Speaker 2: Big Bird going to space and a World War One
[47:05] Speaker 2: story that's all about love. We continue next. Thank you
[47:18] Speaker 2: so much for listening, and thanks for your support on Patreon, patreon,
[47:23] Speaker 2: dot com, slash Seth Andrews. I hope the holidays have
[47:27] Speaker 2: been good to you so far. As we head toward
[47:30] Speaker 2: the big December twenty fifth day, whatever your plans may be,
[47:34] Speaker 2: just be safe, be well, do it on your own terms.
[47:38] Speaker 2: And we are doing a holiday thing, a compilation of
[47:41] Speaker 2: true stories. Cliches often exist for a reason. These things
[47:50] Speaker 2: have become well known enough to become cliche. There used
[47:55] Speaker 2: to be a popular feature on Saturday Night Live. It
[47:58] Speaker 2: was called Deep Thoughts Jack Handy, and there were witty
[48:03] Speaker 2: observations like at my funeral, I'd like there to be
[48:06] Speaker 2: a pinata so people can be happy, but fill it
[48:10] Speaker 2: with bees so they're not too happy. Beyond the punchlines,
[48:16] Speaker 2: we've all heard the classic wonderings about the world we
[48:20] Speaker 2: live in, you know, the rusty old staples that we've
[48:23] Speaker 2: heard a thousand times. Why do we drive on parkways
[48:26] Speaker 2: and park on driveways? Why do you come akzi pilots
[48:30] Speaker 2: wear helmets? That kind of thing. Well, today we're not
[48:34] Speaker 2: really doing true stories, but I want to share some
[48:37] Speaker 2: stuff that speaks to the true things that we do
[48:41] Speaker 2: every day, we say, every day, we think every day,
[48:46] Speaker 2: without necessarily being aware of the irony. These observations and
[48:51] Speaker 2: questions will hopefully give you a smile and just maybe
[48:56] Speaker 2: make you think. Have you ever noticed that fat chance
[49:06] Speaker 2: and slim chance mean the exact same thing? If poison
[49:13] Speaker 2: goes past its expiration date? Does it become more poisonous
[49:18] Speaker 2: or less? I can't do this, but perhaps you can.
[49:23] Speaker 2: Are you able to say the words quickly? Irish wristwatch?
[49:30] Speaker 2: And I know you're trying it right now, Irish wrist watch,
[49:33] Speaker 2: you have to really work at it. I wonder if
[49:37] Speaker 2: twins ever stop to consider the fact that one of
[49:40] Speaker 2: them was actually unplanned. Take a look at the word swims. Swims.
[49:52] Speaker 2: Now write it down and flip it. Look at the
[49:56] Speaker 2: word upside down. Have you ever noticed that it still
[49:59] Speaker 2: says the word swims. Here's an interesting observation. Most of
[50:06] Speaker 2: those doctors who informed Stephen Hawking he would only live
[50:10] Speaker 2: for two years, most of them actually died before he did.
[50:19] Speaker 2: Why is it that things go off when they're actually starting.
[50:26] Speaker 2: Have you ever wondered if animals actually need glasses but
[50:30] Speaker 2: they haven't evolved the ability to invent them. I've often
[50:35] Speaker 2: wondered about that the near sighted or far sighted animal.
[50:41] Speaker 2: Check this one out. If you say this sentence, the
[50:44] Speaker 2: quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, you just
[50:50] Speaker 2: used every letter in the English alphabet. It's a common
[50:56] Speaker 2: saying that something is the best thing since sliced bread.
[51:02] Speaker 2: I wonder what the best thing was before the invention
[51:06] Speaker 2: of sliced bread. Is there a synonym for the word synonym?
[51:14] Speaker 2: When we clap our hands in applause, we're actually high
[51:19] Speaker 2: fiving ourselves for something that somebody else has done. I
[51:25] Speaker 2: never thought of it this way before, But if you
[51:28] Speaker 2: rip a hole in a net, there will actually be
[51:32] Speaker 2: fewer holes than there were before. If you try to
[51:38] Speaker 2: fail at something, and then you succeed at failing, have
[51:42] Speaker 2: you actually succeeded or failed? Drinking from a straw is
[51:50] Speaker 2: the opposite of snorkeling. The youngest picture of you is
[51:58] Speaker 2: also the oldest picture of you. Do you ever wonder
[52:04] Speaker 2: if cats break our stuff on purpose? So then we'll
[52:08] Speaker 2: go and order new stuff and they can play in
[52:11] Speaker 2: the empty boxes. If you find the perfect hiding spot,
[52:18] Speaker 2: is it still the perfect hiding spot? You can give
[52:23] Speaker 2: both an approval and a rejection by saying the word pass.
[52:31] Speaker 2: When you and I wear name brand clothing. We just
[52:34] Speaker 2: paid that company to be their billboard. I wonder because
[52:42] Speaker 2: of its color? Is carrot juice also orange juice? Why
[52:50] Speaker 2: is it that we say that we bite down on
[52:52] Speaker 2: something when we can only move our lower jaw? Aren't
[52:58] Speaker 2: we actually biting up? Here's something interesting. You and I
[53:04] Speaker 2: have probably seen more of the surface of the moon
[53:08] Speaker 2: than we have of the Earth. If you and I
[53:15] Speaker 2: can't see air, does that mean that fish can't see water?
[53:22] Speaker 2: Mirrors don't actually break, they simply multiply. If you turn
[53:30] Speaker 2: your socks inside out, does that mean that the entire
[53:34] Speaker 2: universe is wearing your socks? And you are not? No one,
[53:41] Speaker 2: not one person, not ever, No one has ever been
[53:45] Speaker 2: inside an empty room. Why do we talk about a
[53:51] Speaker 2: lot of hair with the word hair, but when we
[53:55] Speaker 2: only have a few strands of them, we say the
[53:58] Speaker 2: plural hair. Have you ever noticed this one? When you
[54:04] Speaker 2: eat at a restaurant, it's weird for you and your
[54:07] Speaker 2: partner to eat the exact same thing, But when you
[54:11] Speaker 2: have dinner at home, then it becomes weird for you
[54:15] Speaker 2: to eat something different. You do not know what you
[54:21] Speaker 2: have forgotten. And here's a deep one to finish today.
[54:27] Speaker 2: Have you ever stopped to wonder which places that you've
[54:31] Speaker 2: already visited for the last time? Just some fun stuff
[54:38] Speaker 2: to ponder, observations and questions as we explore just a
[54:44] Speaker 2: few of our deep thoughts, curiosities, and true stories. Okay,
[54:57] Speaker 2: grown ups, if you would like to shield your young
[55:01] Speaker 2: sesame street watching children from talk about the nuts and
[55:06] Speaker 2: bolts and players behind the fuzzy fur and feathers, you
[55:11] Speaker 2: might want to wait until the kids are playing in
[55:14] Speaker 2: the other room before you listen to this one. I
[55:17] Speaker 2: am here to tell stories. I am not here to
[55:21] Speaker 2: ruin childhoods all right, you've had time to hit the
[55:26] Speaker 2: pause button, so here we go. Carol Spinney lived an
[55:32] Speaker 2: ironic life. On one hand, he was loved by the
[55:37] Speaker 2: entire world. On the other hand, nobody knew who he was.
[55:42] Speaker 2: He was a hidden figure, hidden behind a character. Since
[55:48] Speaker 2: the launch of the legendary children's television show Sesame Street
[55:53] Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty nine, Carol the Man had been Carol
[55:58] Speaker 2: the Puppeteer, living and walking and talking underneath the feathery
[56:04] Speaker 2: skin of Big Bird. He really was a renaissance man.
[56:09] Speaker 2: He had done so much in his life. He illustrated
[56:13] Speaker 2: a comic strip for the military. He animated cartoons, He
[56:17] Speaker 2: had done puppeteering for several children's shows in the fifties
[56:22] Speaker 2: and sixties. He wrote several books. He was a painter,
[56:26] Speaker 2: And finally, one day he met Jim Henson, who was
[56:30] Speaker 2: impressed with his puppeteering, and Carol Spinney joined the Sesame
[56:35] Speaker 2: Street family to become Big Bird for a full forty
[56:40] Speaker 2: nine years. There's a wonderful documentary about this man. It
[56:45] Speaker 2: released in twenty fourteen. It's called I Am Big Bird,
[56:50] Speaker 2: and it will just fill up your heart anyway. Years ago,
[56:56] Speaker 2: Carol Spinney, the puppeteer was invited to become Carol Spinney
[57:01] Speaker 2: the scientist. NASA wanted to get more kids interested in
[57:07] Speaker 2: space involved in science, and they approached Carol Spinney to
[57:12] Speaker 2: talk about getting Big Bird in the space program as
[57:17] Speaker 2: in actual space flight. Big Bird really going into space.
[57:24] Speaker 2: What an amazing idea. And so the puppeteer and the
[57:28] Speaker 2: engineers started talking about logistics. How might we make this happen.
[57:34] Speaker 2: Let's get the next generation excited about space. And yet
[57:40] Speaker 2: space would be the problem, not outer space, but the
[57:45] Speaker 2: space inside the spacecraft. NASA astronaut requirements don't allow anyone
[57:53] Speaker 2: to exceed six feet three inches in height. The Big
[57:58] Speaker 2: Bird costume is a eight feet two inches. Carol Spinney's
[58:04] Speaker 2: journey as the Big Yellow Bird was grounded before it
[58:09] Speaker 2: could even begin. Somebody else was chosen to launch a
[58:13] Speaker 2: space in his place. And it's here that our story
[58:18] Speaker 2: takes a somber turn. Sesame Street actually stopped filming on
[58:23] Speaker 2: launch day. Everyone took a break and gathered around the TV.
[58:28] Speaker 2: Carol Spinney right there with his fellow actors and puppeteers,
[58:32] Speaker 2: and we can only wonder what he might have been
[58:35] Speaker 2: thinking on that day as he watched the mission that
[58:38] Speaker 2: once might have included him. He watched instead the other
[58:43] Speaker 2: educator and inspirer who joined the astronauts, a woman, a
[58:48] Speaker 2: teacher named Christa mcculloff, the woman who would perish with
[58:56] Speaker 2: six others on the morning of January twenty eighth, nineteen
[59:01] Speaker 2: eighty six. The Space Shuttle launch that Carol Spinney had
[59:06] Speaker 2: missed was the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Mary
[59:38] Speaker 2: Ann Smith was a knocker upper and people paid her
[59:45] Speaker 2: for this service. Now, hang on, hang on, this is
[59:49] Speaker 2: not what you might think. It is knocker uppers. This
[59:54] Speaker 2: was a thing back in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
[59:58] Speaker 2: The Industrial Revolution had been well underway and people were
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: working long hours and factories or underground and mines. They
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: needed the services of a knocker upper. Now picture this
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: profession in the United Kingdom in the nineteen thirties, a
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: profession usually populated by older people, and they would walk
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: the streets early in the mornings or at the midday
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: hours through dusk into the late night. Mary Smith had
[1:00:31] Speaker 2: become a known face around London's East End, and her
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: price was sixpence a week, that is half a shilling,
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: which comes to about six pennies a week in those days.
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: Mary the knocker upper was an alarm clock. Now, mechanical
[1:00:53] Speaker 2: alarm clocks did exist back then, but they were not
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: reliable and frankly they were really expended if most people
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: could not afford one, and so the alternative was to
[1:01:05] Speaker 2: hire a knocker upper, someone like Mary Smith, someone who
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: would show up at a designated time to get them
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: out of bed. And Mary's method was a simple one.
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: She got herself up around three in the morning, she
[1:01:21] Speaker 2: got dressed, ate a small breakfast, and then she would
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: grab her pea shooter, a straw and an arsenal of
[1:01:30] Speaker 2: peas that she would shoot through it like you would
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: shoot a blow dart gun. And every day she would
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: go out and take to the dark streets and she
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: would find your house and stand at the window or
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: door and she would fire projectile peas upon it until
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: you got up. And don't even think about ignoring this sound.
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: That diligent Mary would not leave until she was sure
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: that you were wide awake. And she was good. There's
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: actually a children's book written about this woman, and it
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: depicts her walking London, waking up everyone from common fishermen
[1:02:09] Speaker 2: to the mayor. And of course people haven't changed. They
[1:02:13] Speaker 2: were then like we are today. Some woke up cheery
[1:02:18] Speaker 2: and grateful, and others woke up grumpy and gripy. But
[1:02:23] Speaker 2: Mary Smith would be there sometimes, as the story goes,
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: shouting a good morning up toward the house and even
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: offering you a cup of hot tea. This was a
[1:02:35] Speaker 2: somewhat popular profession. Mary's direct competition was an old man
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: three miles away, and he was also a knocker upper.
[1:02:44] Speaker 2: His method was to bang on windows and doors with
[1:02:48] Speaker 2: a long fishing rod, irritating but effective. Of course, today
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: we have all kinds of annoying ways to get ourselves
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: out of bed. Any of these things are novelty alarm
[1:03:02] Speaker 2: clocks that we can buy online. In fact, you can
[1:03:05] Speaker 2: purchase right now a flying alarm clock. It's got an
[1:03:09] Speaker 2: actual rotor blade, like a helicopter blade, and it launches
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: and flies and bangs around your room. You can buy
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: a clocky. This is a mobile alarm with wheels. It
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: drives around and smashes into the furniture and the walls
[1:03:27] Speaker 2: until you get up to shut it off. There's a
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: target shooting clock. You actually keep a laser gun by
[1:03:33] Speaker 2: your bed. The clock itself has a bull's eye on
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: the other side of the room. You have to get
[1:03:38] Speaker 2: up and aim your gun and hit the bullseye to
[1:03:41] Speaker 2: shut the alarm off. There are police siren alarms, fire
[1:03:46] Speaker 2: station bell alarms, symbol alarms, glowing pillow alarms. Your pillow
[1:03:54] Speaker 2: turns into a white lights as you've got your head
[1:03:58] Speaker 2: buried within it. And there are hideous contraptions that come
[1:04:03] Speaker 2: without a snooze button. Wait a minute, no snooze. That
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: is simply unthinkable, And perhaps my favorite modern contraption is
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: the most insidious. It is called the Snooze and lose
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: smart alarm clock, and it does have a snooze button,
[1:04:26] Speaker 2: But every time you press it, it taps your bank
[1:04:30] Speaker 2: account and it donates money to an organization that you hate.
[1:04:38] Speaker 2: You've set it all up in advance. Every time you snooze,
[1:04:42] Speaker 2: money goes out of your account into the account of
[1:04:45] Speaker 2: someone you detest. Oh, it makes you appreciate the old
[1:04:50] Speaker 2: time knocker uppers people like Mary Smith, that lovely woman
[1:04:56] Speaker 2: who visits your home with kind words, hot tea and
[1:05:01] Speaker 2: her tiny little pea shooter. Given the alternatives, it doesn't
[1:05:07] Speaker 2: sound at all like a bad way to start the day, Okay,
[1:05:36] Speaker 2: And let's finish with one that ties directly into the
[1:05:39] Speaker 2: Christmas holiday season. Except this story isn't resented. This is
[1:05:44] Speaker 2: about a Christmas that happened over one hundred years ago
[1:05:55] Speaker 2: in the muddy trenches on the Western Front. It was
[1:05:59] Speaker 2: the First World War and it was hell for the holidays.
[1:06:05] Speaker 2: Nineteen fourteen saw the beginning of that four year conflict.
[1:06:10] Speaker 2: In five months after the first shots were fired, both
[1:06:13] Speaker 2: the opposing British and German forces found themselves at war.
[1:06:18] Speaker 2: On Christmas Eve, the soldiers, already so exhausted and weary
[1:06:24] Speaker 2: and sometimes bored and trying to pass the time, would
[1:06:27] Speaker 2: be so close to the trenches of the enemy that
[1:06:31] Speaker 2: many who could bridge the language barrier would engage in
[1:06:35] Speaker 2: conversation from one trench to another. A German might ask
[1:06:40] Speaker 2: someone in the British army about English football, or the
[1:06:44] Speaker 2: weather in London, or somebody's sweetheart back home, and vice versa.
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: Many British soldiers would engage in conversation with the enemy
[1:06:56] Speaker 2: in German conversations before and between the bullets and bombs.
[1:07:02] Speaker 2: It was so strange to see. Christmas nineteen fourteen, roughly
[1:07:07] Speaker 2: one hundred thousand British and German troops sat within their
[1:07:12] Speaker 2: trenches during a short informal cease fire. British machine gunner
[1:07:17] Speaker 2: Bruce Bairn's father was there. He was shivering in the mock,
[1:07:22] Speaker 2: jammed into a trench probably eight feet deep by six
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: feet wide, weary of all the sleepless nights and the
[1:07:31] Speaker 2: stale food and the wet cigarettes. But something magical would
[1:07:37] Speaker 2: happen on that Christmas Eve. It was around ten o'clock
[1:07:43] Speaker 2: at night that Bruce heard a sound. He was hearing
[1:07:48] Speaker 2: voices from the enemy trenches across the field. So Bruce
[1:07:53] Speaker 2: and a few buddies gathered around to listen, and they
[1:07:58] Speaker 2: realized what they were hearing was the sound of singing.
[1:08:03] Speaker 2: The German troops were singing Christmas carols, and it wasn't
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: long before British soldiers were singing right back to them.
[1:08:14] Speaker 2: And the songs continued for a while until finally a
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: German soldier shouted out in English, come over here. A
[1:08:24] Speaker 2: British sergeant responded, you come halfway. I will come halfway.
[1:08:32] Speaker 2: And what happened next would come to be described as
[1:08:36] Speaker 2: a Christmas miracle. The sworn enemies of both sides slowly
[1:08:42] Speaker 2: climbed out of their trenches, and they stood upright and
[1:08:47] Speaker 2: walked forward into this empty middle zone that they called
[1:08:51] Speaker 2: no man's land. And the soldiers smiled at each other
[1:08:55] Speaker 2: and shook hands and exchanged names. They traded cigarettes and
[1:09:02] Speaker 2: chocolate and bottles of liquor. The killers of two world
[1:09:07] Speaker 2: powers were meeting in peace for a holiday party that
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: would last into the night and ring in the first
[1:09:15] Speaker 2: hours of Christmas Day. Gunner Bruce Bairn's father would one
[1:09:20] Speaker 2: day write these words about that magical moment. He said,
[1:09:24] Speaker 2: there was not an atom of hate on either side.
[1:09:29] Speaker 2: Another British soldier, a guy named John Ferguson, would document
[1:09:33] Speaker 2: the day. He said, quote, here we were laughing and
[1:09:37] Speaker 2: chatting to men whom only a few hours before we
[1:09:41] Speaker 2: were trying to kill. This strange phenomenon was also happening
[1:09:46] Speaker 2: on battlefields elsewhere. Small pockets of French, German, Belgian and
[1:09:53] Speaker 2: British troops were holding their own festive seaspires. Across the
[1:09:57] Speaker 2: Western and parts of the Eastern Front. There was a
[1:10:01] Speaker 2: British fighter. His name was Ernie Williams, and he would
[1:10:05] Speaker 2: report hundreds of soldiers representing both the British and German armies.
[1:10:10] Speaker 2: They were playing a large scale version of soccer, and
[1:10:15] Speaker 2: beyond the handshakes and the laughter, and the music and
[1:10:19] Speaker 2: the wine, both enemy camps respectfully allowed the other camps
[1:10:25] Speaker 2: to collect their dead for a proper burial. The generals
[1:10:30] Speaker 2: in the field were horrified by all of this. British
[1:10:35] Speaker 2: generals Sir Horace Smith Dorian would go on to lament
[1:10:39] Speaker 2: the apathy of his men who were punished for fraternizing
[1:10:43] Speaker 2: with the enemy. There was a government notice published calling
[1:10:47] Speaker 2: this interaction treason and sadly, once the singing, then soccer,
[1:10:53] Speaker 2: and drinks and dancing had waned, the British and the Germans,
[1:10:58] Speaker 2: under orders from their superiors, were once again forced to
[1:11:03] Speaker 2: declare war upon the men they had befriended only moments before.
[1:11:12] Speaker 2: If you travel to the National Memorial Arboretum in England,
[1:11:16] Speaker 2: you can see there is a statue there commemorating the
[1:11:20] Speaker 2: nineteen fourteen Christmas Truths. There's a bronze statue of two
[1:11:26] Speaker 2: hands shaking just like those shaking hands from the Christmas
[1:11:32] Speaker 2: Eve battlefields of World War One, marking those few brief
[1:11:38] Speaker 2: moments when warriors welcomed each other in peace, not rivals,
[1:11:44] Speaker 2: not killers, not victims, not even nations, but men brothers
[1:11:50] Speaker 2: on this earth, human beings standing side by side and
[1:11:56] Speaker 2: face to face in Christmas goodwill on a small patch
[1:12:01] Speaker 2: of land that, just for a few precious moments, belonged
[1:12:07] Speaker 2: to them all. Rudyard Kipling once wrote these words. He said,
[1:12:29] Speaker 2: if history were taught in the form of stories, it
[1:12:32] Speaker 2: would never be forgotten. And I agree. If you want
[1:12:36] Speaker 2: to get and keep someone's attention, if you want to
[1:12:40] Speaker 2: interest them, amuse them, distract them, shock them, move and
[1:12:45] Speaker 2: motivate them, or maybe just join them. As we appreciate
[1:12:49] Speaker 2: our connection to the elements of our world, few things
[1:12:53] Speaker 2: are as powerful as the elements of a story. There
[1:12:57] Speaker 2: was a whole lot going on in the world that
[1:12:59] Speaker 2: disturbs and distracts us. There is so much to worry
[1:13:02] Speaker 2: about and grieve. There is work to do, But I
[1:13:06] Speaker 2: think it is important we never lose the moments of story,
[1:13:11] Speaker 2: the ability to take the journey, the realization that we
[1:13:15] Speaker 2: can expand and even liberate minds through stories. What kind
[1:13:21] Speaker 2: of stories lie ahead for you and me? What will
[1:13:24] Speaker 2: real world circumstances and fantastic fictions bring us who really knows,
[1:13:31] Speaker 2: but let us tell them together to each other and
[1:13:35] Speaker 2: for each other. I think perhaps the author Richard Denny
[1:13:39] Speaker 2: was right when he said authors do not choose a
[1:13:43] Speaker 2: story to write. The story chooses us. Thank you so
[1:13:49] Speaker 2: much for listening, and have a wonderful holiday.
[1:13:56] Speaker 3: The Cotta

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