In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 117: BONUS - Myths, Legends, and Lore of New England(10-25-2023)

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Not only is Episode 117 the special monthly bonus episode of the podcast, but it is the Halloween bonus episode!
This year's Halloween bonus show centers around some of the spookiest, weirdest, and just downright unbelievable myths, legends, and lore of all of the New England states.
There will be two stories from each state giving us a dozen creepy tales.
They include:
Massachusetts: Bridgewater Triangle/Pukwudgies, The Beast of Truro
Rhode Island: Mercy Brown the Rhode Island Vampire, The Ghost Ship Palatine
Connecticut: The Legend of Dudleytown, The Haunting of Saw Mill City Road
New Hampshire: Wood Devils, Chocorua's Curse
Vermont: The Curse of Brunswick Springs, Frozen Hill People
Maine: Col. Buck's Tomb, The Sabattus Well Descent

Learn more about all of these at the following links:

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Listen to Episode 116 here 

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Speaker 01:

Hello, world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Speaker 02:

And

Speaker 00:

this is episode 117. It is not just the monthly bonus episode, it's the Halloween monthly bonus episode. And in this episode, we're going to talk about some of the biggest myths, legends and lore of each New England state. So get ready to be scared, shocked and surprised as we look at the Myths, legends, and lore of each New England state on episode 117 of the In My Footsteps podcast.

Speaker 01:

Welcome in, everybody. I probably could have kept that voice up throughout the whole episode. It starts to feel like gargling with razor blades. I've always had a gift for being able to do many different voices. That helped me out a lot when I was filming things with my camcorder in high school or doing the funny audio tapes and such with my friends way back in the day. But unless this podcast turns into some kind of old-timey variety show, radio show, I won't be doing too many of those voices here. So for this bonus episode, we're going to go through each of the six New England states that I've got two different myths or legends or lore from each state to share and to go into a little detail with. Because this is a bonus episode of the podcast, it's not going to be perhaps as in-depth as I would like to. But if there's anything I talk about this week that you want to know more about, I could probably do a deeper dive into some of these as we go on in the podcast. So just give me a shout at ChristopherSederland at gmail.com. If any of these topics speak to you as far as doing a deep dive in the future. So I figure what better way to start off this bonus episode, this Halloween bonus episode, than starting with my home state, the state of Massachusetts. The best part of this podcast is that a lot of these things I'm talking about today, I didn't really know about. I did my research, so I got to learn stuff as well. But for the state of Massachusetts, I am very familiar with these legends and lore. So let's start off in the state of Massachusetts with the Bridgewater Triangle. Yes, the name is a takeoff of the famed Bermuda Triangle. Cryptozoologist Lauren Coleman came up with this name, Bridgewater Triangle, back in 1983. It's purported to be a 200 square mile paranormal vortex, with some saying there's more weirdness per square foot here than in the Bermuda Triangle. The Paranormal Vortex forms essentially a triangle, like it would say in the name, with the three points being in the towns of Abington, Rehoboth, and Freetown. Inside the Bridgewater Triangle are a lot of towns in southeastern Massachusetts. Taunton, Raynham, Berkeley, Dighton, Brockton, Easton, and Bridgewater. There are stories of UFO sightings, orbs, Bigfoot sightings, and other paranormal in this area. You can find creepy videos from the Bridgewater Triangle on TikTok and places like that. The center of activity seems to be Hockamock Swamp in Bridgewater. And this is one of the places that I'm going to talk about on this week's show that I've actually been to. There's a lot of nothing in the area of the Bridgewater Triangle. creepy thick forest and the swamp as well now i didn't go and spend several hours wandering around the hockamock swamp but i was there long enough i got some photos it is every bit as isolated and creepy as you might read in articles but i didn't see anything or hear anything or have any experiences like that i'm not saying that it's not filled with weird stuff going on But I had weirder, creepier vibes walking around the fire roads on Cape Cod out in Wellfleet and Truro than I did in the Hockamock Swamp. Perhaps the creepiest residents of the Bridgewater Triangle are creatures that are known as Pukwudgies. These are of Wampanoag Native American lore, and they're also known as the little wild man of the woods that vanishes. It's a humanoid-like creature said to be around two to three feet tall. and they can shapeshift and appear and disappear at will. Their most common form is that of a half-human, half-troll, looks kind of like a porcupine from the back. And according to Native Americans, they believe that the Pukwudgies were once friendly to humans, but then turned against them and are best left alone. But beware if you go out into the Bridgewater Triangle, because Pukwudgies are known to lure people to their deaths, use magic, launch poison arrows, and create fire. They don't sound like someone you want to meet or mess with. The other myth that I want to share from the state of Massachusetts is one that is also relatively recent. It's interesting because a lot of these legends, myths, and lore, they're from centuries ago. But yet the Bridgewater Triangle is pretty current. And back in the early 1980s on Cape Cod, there was a rash of brutal slaughtering of local pets and livestock by some unknown creature or creatures. It was dubbed the Beast of Truro. And if you haven't heard of it, you'll be shocked to know that there was actually a big write-up, a big article in the New York Times in 1982 about this. So it became national news. It started in September 1981 when a dozen dead cats were found in the same area of Truro. And then right around the turn of the new year in 1982... A 175-pound hog was so badly mauled, its flanks ripped open by deep claw marks, and a chunk of flesh ripped out of its neck that it had to be put down. There were reports of more pigs being clawed in their pens at other parts of Truro, and people thought at first it was a pack of wild dogs, maybe. But there were reports of a strange creature that people in town didn't recognize. There were strange noises heard at night. And then there was a close encounter with a couple near Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro, where this creature appeared about 50 feet in front of them on the beach with a long rope-like tail. The husband pointed it out, and they both agreed that this was not a fox, with the couple figuring that the creature must have been as tall as their knees and weighing between 60 and 80 pounds. And despite the couple making noise and getting a branch to try to scare the creature off, it didn't run. It just casually walked and kept going off a path. Several people that were witness to this creature believe it was a mountain lion. The Beast of Truro attacks didn't last much longer after this article in the New York Times in January 1982. So it was brief, but obviously terrifying. And if you think a mountain lion couldn't get down to Cape Cod and get all the way out to Truro and kind of hang out there, in 2012, we had a black bear get down on Cape Cod and wander its way all the way out from the canal all the way out to Brewster. And back in the early 1980s, 70% of the town of Truro was undeveloped land, part of the national seashore. So it is possible that a mountain lion could have been the beast of Truro. But if any of you out there that grew up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts have memories of the Beast of Truro and what you think it was, definitely let me know your ideas. So now we're going to move on from the state of Massachusetts to the state of Rhode Island. This first bit of legend and lore I've covered previously on the podcast, so I won't spend forever on it. But then again, this is a bonus episode, so I'm not going to spend an exorbitant amount of time on any of these subjects. But this is the story of Mercy Brown, Rhode Island's own vampire. For this story, we go back to the 1880s and the small town of Exeter, Rhode Island, and a series of tragedies that befell the Brown family. A rash of mysterious illnesses started killing the family. Patriarch George Brown watched as his wife, Mary, grew sick and wasted away right before his eyes. Shortly thereafter, his daughter, Mary Olive, suffered the same symptoms, including a painful, long-lasting cough, expelling a mixture of blood and mucus, severe weight loss. A few years later, George's only son, Edwin, began to suffer the same symptoms. But before Edwin could pass away from this illness, he and his wife fled and they went out to Colorado Springs, where he ended up getting better. While Edwin was living out west, his sister, Mercy Brown, began getting sick with the same illness. She passed away in January 1892. Edwin returned from Colorado Springs after hearing of his sister's death, and once he got back to Rhode Island, he began to relapse and suffer from the illness again. Looking at this through the lens of the 21st century, we know that these symptoms were that of tuberculosis or consumption as they called it back then. But back then in the late 19th century, these horrible physical changes in a person gave some the idea that it might be vampires that were sucking the life out of the living. This came to a head in the spring of 1892 as Edwin Brown was continuing to slip away due to the tuberculosis. And the town of Exeter was convinced that Edwin was being slowly drained of his life by a vampire. They begged George Brown to dig up the bodies of his wife and two deceased daughters to prove them wrong. On the morning of March 17, 1892, all three were dug up at Exeter's Chestnut Hill Cemetery. George's wife Mary and his daughter Mary Olive had been dead for nearly a decade at the time and they were only skeletons when they were dug up. However, Mercy had only been dead for two months and had been buried in the cold of a New England winter and her body looked surprisingly lifelike when she was exhumed. This only ramped up the hysteria And people in the crowd removed Mercy's heart and placed it on a nearby rock and burned it. And then somehow thinking that this might help Edwin, they mixed the ashes of Mercy's heart in with Edwin's medicine. In the end, it did not help. And Edwin died from tuberculosis on May 2nd, 1892. News of this story spread all across the world and actually influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula. And it's wild to think in 1892, where the automobile was close to being invented, electricity had been invented, the telephone had been invented, hell, Coca-Cola was around. And yet people thought vampires were real and ravaging this town in Rhode Island. It's incredible. The other legend I want to speak up for the state of Rhode Island is the legend of the ghost ship Palatine. This story is mixed in reality as it starts off with a British vessel that ran aground on Block Island on December 26, 1738. And that was mixed with the reputation that Block Island's residents earned for looting wrecked ships back at the time. Block Island's reputation was so bad that sailors in the 18th and 19th century would say they'd rather be wrecked anywhere than at Block Island. The ghost ship Palatine, in reality, was actually named the Countess Augusta, and it carried 240 immigrants from the Palatine region of southwest Germany. So there's where the name came from. It sailed from Rotterdam, Germany in August 1738 under Captain George Long and was headed for Philadelphia and Virginia. The ship was seemingly cursed from the start as the ship carried contaminated water. Passengers and crew died of disease even before the stormy seas pushed them off course. And it got worse because the captain died so the first mate had to take over. But faced with a blinding snowstorm, the ship ended up aground on the northern tip of Block Island at Sandy Point. What happened after that point varies. In the depositions of the surviving crew, it is said that the first mate, who was then the captain, rode ashore, leaving the passengers on the ship. But then the Block Island residents persuaded him to bring all the passengers ashore and nurse them to health. The Block Island residents even buried about 20 passengers who died in the wreck on Block Island. There is a marker of these Palatine graves. And some of the passengers ended up living on Block Island. So hardly sounding like the reputation that Block Island had for looting these ships. But another version was told by Joseph P. Hazard to poet John Greenleaf Whittier. In that one, the Block Islanders lured the ship onto the shoals with a false light, murdered the starving and freezing passengers, and set the Palatine afire and then sent it out to sea to hide their crimes. Legend has it that every year between Christmas and New Year's, Block Islanders can see the ghost ship and hear the screams of passenger Mary Vanderline, who was driven mad by her suffering. And as that time of year gets close, if you're on Block Island, legend has it that the light looks like a blaze of fire six or seven miles from the northern part of Block Island. I'll put links in the description of the podcast for a lot of the in-depth stories of these legends because I'm trying to hit all the important story beats, but I can't go too in-depth. But let's continue moving west into the state of Connecticut and the story of the ghost town known as Dudleytown. Dudleytown was never incorporated as a town. It was an area of the town of Cornwall that was settled by many families, but Biggest of them, the Dudley family in the 1740s. The area was converted from forest to farmland and lived upon for generations. But the land was not great for farming, so when more fertile land opened up in the Midwest in the mid-1800s, families started moving out there and the town of Cornwall suffered a lot of population decline. Legend has it that the Dudley family was cursed. as the founders of this Dudley town were descended from Edmund Dudley, who was an English nobleman that was beheaded for treason during the reign of Henry VIII. That curse is blamed for the farmland not being fertile enough in Dudley town, a rash of violent deaths in the village, mental illness. Local historians have found no connection between the Dudley family of Cornwall and the English nobleman. And the land has been cared for by philanthropists over the last hundred years, who reforested the land after all the farming. And all that's left of Dudleytown are a few cellar holes. But in the 1980s, rumors of ghost activity began. So the village site of Dudleytown has been subject to a lot of vandalism, with the owners of the land now closing it to the public. The movie The Blair Witch Project brought more attention to the abandoned Dudleytown, and for decades, ghost hunters have been fascinated by the tales of this abandoned village. Although Dudleytown will be very hard for anyone to go and find, especially if the land is kind of off-limits, the other myth and legend of Connecticut is quite the opposite. It's not private. It's not hidden. It's the Sawmill City Road, which is located in the town of Shelton, Connecticut. It is a paved road. And during the day, it's actually a pretty pleasant drive surrounded by forest. But the real issues come at night. That's where if you're driving the stretch of road near the Meansbrook Reservoir, you could possibly see orbs. People have heard screaming from multiple directions at the same time. They've seen shadowy figures running from tree to tree. I'd suggest your high beams because the road is a little bit curvy. During the summer with the rising temperatures, these reports from the Sawmill City Road only increase. And this is where people say they see the melon heads. which are purported to be a growing population of inbred monsters living in the depths of the woods. Some say they could even be cannibals, but they've been seen drinking at the reservoir, children playing in the woods can hear them breathing behind them, or worse, they make direct eye contact with them, and their faces are deformed and spooky. And some say the melonheads even place dead animals in the road to try to cause accidents, or might be waiting for you around the curve of the road. As I did my research on this, I have no idea why this section of Sawmill City Road is considered so haunted, like the origin story of it, but it sounds really terrifying, and I may have to go and take a drive out there at some point. Maybe not at night, but who knows? Next, we venture to the state of New Hampshire and the myth of the Woods Devil. The Woods Devil, or possibly devils, are referred to as a Bigfoot-type creature that have been roaming the woodlands and the hills of Coos County, New Hampshire, for nearly a century. Coos County is the northernmost and largest county in the state of New Hampshire, at more than 1,800 square miles. So these woods devils that are shaggy, standing around seven to nine feet tall with tannish grayish hair have a lot of wide open area to roam if they're up there. An interesting trait of these woods devils is the fact that they look kind of like a tree in color and size. And that if a human, a hunter, outdoorsman, hiker is out there in the woods, these woods devils will hide behind trees to hide from the humans. Or if there's no cover, they'll stand perfectly still, giving the illusion that they are a tree. Those in the area of Coos County have described hearing screams of these woods devils. There had been sightings of these woods devils as far back as the 19th century, with the sightings peaking in the 1930s. Stories of close encounters say that the wood devil's face, even though the body looks kind of like a Bigfoot, the face looks more like a rodent, like a ferret or a possum. But like I said, Coos County is more than 1,800 square miles in far northern New Hampshire. So there's a lot of wide open space, and if these wood devils like to blend in with the forest, it might be difficult to see one if they are out there. The other story I want to talk about from New Hampshire is Chocorua's Curse. Mount Chocorua is located in the town of Albany, New Hampshire, and stands 3,490 feet at the summit, and is considered one of the most picturesque mountains in New England. But the man Chocorua, behind the mountain name, was a Native American chief who, according to some accounts, had remained behind after many of his tribe had moved to St. Francis in Canada after the 1725 Battle of Lovewell's Pond in Freiburg, Maine. The story of what led to the curse was Chocorua entrusted his young son to a family of local settlers, last name Campbell, with whom he was on friendly terms. Either Chocorua went to visit the others of his tribe in St. Francis, or he was still present in the area. But either way, the endgame was the son died while visiting the Campbells, with the story saying that the son accidentally ingested some poison that had been left for a troublesome fox. Chocorua blamed the Campbells for the death of his son and murdered the wife and children in revenge. Seeking then revenge for themselves, the patriarch of the Campbell family, Cornelius, and several other men pursued Chocorua, who took refuge on the mountain that would later bear his name. He was then shot, and with his dying breath, he cursed the white men. For many years after Chocorua's death, that area's small colony of pioneers experienced raids from other Native Americans, winds would tear the trees up, Crops were destroyed, cattle died, and even the strongest of these settlers succumbed to sickness. These were all blamed on Chocorua's curse. Even wolf and bear raids on livestock were blamed on the curse. After that, all the settlers avoided that mountain. And even today, Mount Chocorua in Albany, New Hampshire remains lifeless and barren. Next, we're going to move on to the neighboring state of Vermont. and the Curse of Brunswick Springs. Brunswick Springs is located well off the main road in Brunswick, Vermont, which is a town that has about 100 residents. Interestingly, Ripley's Believe It or Not called Brunswick Springs the eighth wonder of the world in 1984. I think Andre the Giant would like to have a word with them. There are six individual springs at that spot, and each of them allegedly contains a different mineral, iron, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, bromide, and arsenic that flow into the Connecticut River that's 65 feet below. In 1748, the Abenaki tribe of Native Americans lived near the spring and relied upon it for the natural healing powers of the waters. Legend has it that when a soldier was wounded in the French and Indian War, his Abenaki companions brought him to the springs and put him under the water and he was cured of his wounds. This French soldier, after the war, supposedly returned to the springs to bottle and sell the water which the Abenaki objected to. Legend has it that an Abenaki man and baby were killed and the child's mother, who was a sorceress, is said to have cursed the springs. The stories of the healing water continued to spread, and it seemed like a goldmine for people to get the water and bottle and sell it. Hotels sprung up around the springs. The Brunswick Spring House was the first one that was built in 1860. People would take the train from all over to go to Brunswick Springs to get some of that healing water. The hotel burned to the ground after the owner enlarged it. After the turn of the 20th century, the land was sold to another man named John Hutchins, who took over the rebuilt hotel. He renamed it the Pinecrest Lodge. There were three fires that were suspicious, with the lodge burning to the ground in 1929. The curse of Brunswick Springs, it was said that anyone who tried to profit off of the healing mineral waters would fail. After the last hotel fire in 1931, there was nothing rebuilt, and the cement foundation of that hotel and the stairs leading to the cellar still remain just above the springs. We move on in Vermont from that curse to something that is just so weird and creepy that it can't be true. This is the story of Vermont's frozen hill people. To sum this up, a reporter for the Montpelier, Argus, and Patriot newspaper quote-unquote found entries in his Uncle William's diary detailing one family's ritual of freezing their elderly and weak and putting them into literal cold storage for the winter. The account of this the reporter put on the front page of the newspaper on December 21st, 1887. The idea behind this is that there was an extremely poor family of hill farmers isolated in a mountain town 20 minutes from Montpelier. The cold, hard winters mixed with their meager food supply forced them to come up with a weird idea. They basically put the older and weaker members of their families into hibernation. They drugged six members of the family, four men and two women, And once they were unconscious inside a warm cabin, they were stripped down to only one garment and carried outside. They were left outside to freeze. And in a few hours, the bodies were packed into a box with straw to guard against predators for their months of cold storage. In May, men dug through the snow and found these boxes and pried open the lids. removing the bodies and placing them into steaming baths of a hemlock potion. Legend has it that after about an hour, color began to return and fingers began to twitch. The family members would rub the bodies continuously and slowly these frozen hill people began to awake. They were then brought inside and seated next to a roaring fire and given a hearty meal. And after just a few hours, those that had been frozen for four months seemed completely revived and healthy. This legend of the frozen hill people spread worldwide with some swearing that it's true. But in 1887, there wasn't the cryogenics that we have today freezing people. So I'll leave that up to you to decide if it's real or not. Last but not least, we are going to venture to the state of Maine. And we're going to first start off with the story of Colonel Buck's Tomb. Just last week on the podcast, I did a road trip to the towns of Prospect and Bucksport, Maine. And in researching that is where I found the story of Colonel Buck's Tomb. The story in a nutshell is the tomb of the town's founder, Colonel Jonathan Buck. and a mysterious stain on the tomb that looks like the image of a woman's stocking-clad foot or maybe a boot. Legend has it that Colonel Buck burned a witch and her leg rolled out of the bonfire. The family of Colonel Buck has tried to clean that foot off of the stone and have replaced the monument twice, but that foot keeps coming back. The burned witch's son is the one that placed the curse on Colonel Buck, saying your tomb shall bear the mark of a witch's foot for all eternity. There have been worse curses that I've spoken about just in this episode, but it's crazy to think that they have replaced this marker twice and this leg keeps appearing on it. If you want, you can go to Bucksport, Maine. Go on a road trip. and go and see his tomb and see the leg for yourself. It is an interesting note that the stain is on a monument that was erected in Colonel Buck's memory 75 years after he died, and that his actual real tombstone is unblemished. Although some say that if you're going through the trouble of putting a curse on someone, you'd want to have that leg on the huge, giant monument and not on a little tombstone. And we'll end our look at some of New England's creepiest legends, lore, and myths with the story of the haunted well in Sabotus, Maine. There is no date on this legend, but there's a well located in the back of a cemetery that was reported to be haunted. And there were a group of teens that dared one of their friends to be lowered down into the well. And of course, the young boy agreed because teenage boys are idiots and want to impress their friends. So the boy sat in a rubber tire and was lowered down into the well for many minutes before his friends could no longer see him. After a few more minutes, the boys realized there was no movement from the rope, no noise coming from the well. So the boys pulled the tire up with their friend in it, and they found him to be very changed from when they lowered him down. The boy's hair had gone bright white, his entire body was shaking, and he was unable to form coherent sentences. His appearance was like that of an old man, and his laughter indicated that he had gone insane. The story goes that the boy never changed back from this state. and that for years he would just randomly scream from the windows of the mental institution where he was placed. Sabotus has a lot of cemeteries, or several cemeteries, so it's unknown where this well is, but it's purported to be real if you want to go and try to find it. But it seriously sounds like something out of The Ring, like you'd expect someone to climb out of it. But that will wrap up our bonus episode, our look at some of the New England myths and legends and lore. I specifically looked for things that I wasn't familiar with. But for the rest of these, I wasn't too sure about any of them. Bridgewater Triangle, yes. But for the most part, I learned about them to share them with you. Were you familiar with any of these? Those of you that live in New England, are you familiar with some of these legends from your state? And which one do you think was the creepiest of all these 12 that I talked about? Like I said, these bonus episodes, they're not quite full length. So I kind of glossed over a little bit. I wanted to give you as much detail packed into as little time as I could. But if any of these interest you and you want me to do a deeper dive, let me know. I mean, some like the Sabotus Well and the Frozen Hill people, those I pretty much summed up. So there's not much else to add. I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween. If you visit any of these places I talked about trying to chase the myths and legends, be safe. I'll be back next week, full-length episode, the first one of November, episode 118, my birthday month. So I'm going to share some of my birthday greatest hits, these embarrassments, and try to talk about how age is only a number as I try to convince myself that I'm not middle-aged. We're going to take a fun trip back for Cape Codders and look at the legendary Sandy Pond Club of West Yarmouth. We're going to take a road trip to one of my favorite places in all of New England, the town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There's going to be a brand new top five that are the top five 1980s fast food failures. And of course, there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule coming up on episode 118 of the In My Footsteps podcast next week. Also coming next week is episode number two, Subscribers Only. If you want to become a subscriber on Patreon or Buzzsprout and have access to my fever dream look at a blog I used to run 15 years ago where it really shows how my life is like an episode of the TV show Seinfeld. I share so much stuff all the time on all of those. Thank you to everyone who has been coming out to my book events for my revised version of my Cape Cod travel guide and my new Cape Cod photography book, as well as my Searching for the Lady of the Dunes events. 2024 is the 50th anniversary of that murder. So I'm going to be really pushing this book. I've already got a couple of big events planned for next year with hopefully a lot more to come. You can get your copies of any of my books at ChristopherSetterlin.com, my homepage. It's created, updated, run by my oldest friend, Barry Menard. You've heard me talk about him a ton. If you want to know more about the Lady of the Dunes, you can visit theladyofthedunes.com. Created and run by me. I am no graphic designer, so go easy on my layout. I'm slowly building the inmyfootstepspodcast.com. Building websites is hard, and I want to make sure that if I launch this one that it looks good and is worth people checking out. So enjoy the rest of the spooky season. Be safe if you're going to any Halloween parties. If you dress up, make it interesting. And most of all, have fun. Fun is good for your mental health. Lean into the things that make you happy. Hopefully this podcast brings you some enjoyment and a bit of escape from the world for a little while. And I'll be back doing it again next week, the 118th episode, with a lot more to come. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path and enjoy every moment you can on this journey because you never know what tomorrow brings. Thank you all again for tuning in to this special bonus episode. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, and I'll talk to you all again soon.

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