Episode 11: Wear Your Wish Interview; Cape Cod's Most Off-Limits Area; Playing Manhunt; This Week In History (2-25-2021)

Episode 11 is a loaded show!  It begins with a special interview with Katie Marks. Her clothing and apparel company Wear Your Wish launches on February 28th.  She describes her journey from single mother to business owner in an interview sure to inspire!
We go Back In the Day to a fun game we used to play in my neighborhood growing up.  Whether you called it Manhunt, or something else, nothing beat warm summer nights and playing Hide and Seek in the dark.  Some fun and embarrassing stories to come!
Cape Cod is home to several private and off-limits areas.  Perhaps none is more secure than Great Island in West Yarmouth.  Home to the retired Point Gammon Lighthouse hear the story of my quest to get a photo of it.  Years of trying led to success, with a little luck.
This Week In History looks back at the creation of the Woolworth retail store, the Miracle on Ice Olympic hockey game, and more!
Also I am happy to announce this podcast is now available on my home website Christopher Setterlund.com.  This is thanks to the efforts of my longtime friend, and great graphic designer, Barry Menard.
All of this and more is here on Episode 11 of the In My Footsteps Podcast, so come on and take a walk!

Check out Episode 10 here.

Transcript

00:00 Intro

Hello, world How's everybody doing out there this week? I am Christopher Setterlund Welcome to Episode 11 of the in my footsteps podcast. Come on in for a little slice of my consciousness a little trip inside my mind. When I say take a walk, we go all over here, history, travel, nostalgia, some lifestyle, some fun stories, all that we're ending February on a high note. By the time you all listen to this, I will have had my second COVID vaccination shot that is big, I will let you know on a future episode. If there's any side effects. The first shot, there was none my shoulder was sore. But that was it. I can't wait to be able to go and visit my grandmother in the nursing home. The Zoom visits are fun. But this last one we just did this week, they put the tablet in an area where it was close to her television. So she ended up watching TV mostly rather than chatting with me and my aunt Kelly and my sister Kate. But you know, what are you going to do? Make the best of what you can. 

So for this episode, I am really excited. I always put all of my effort into each episode of the podcast, I try to give as much interesting content so that you have a reason to listen once in a reason to come back and listen to different episodes. This week. I'm very excited. I think it's loaded top to bottom. And I want to jump right into it. So this week's episode, I tell one of my favorite stories, where I found a way to get out to one of the most remote and off limit places on Cape Cod, that being Great Island and West Yarmouth. It's a toss up between Great Island and maybe oyster harbors, as the most secure places on the Cape. And that was five years ago this month, I got to get out there. So that's a fun story. 

I also, I'm gonna bring us way back in the day to playing a game Hide and Seek at night that we called manhunt, which some of you may have called it a different name, but it was so much fun. And I'll share some of my favorite memories of playing that game in the old neighborhood, the Cherry Lane neighborhood. We're going to go back to this week in history with another time capsule, and interesting stories including the birth of the Woolworths department store. If you remember those, they went out of business in the 90s. And also the Miracle on ice, Olympic hockey game, and more besides that, but I want to start off with something really special an interview with my sister, Katie Marks, she is starting her own clothing and accessory company on the 28th is going to launch it's called Wear Your Wish. And she has put so much hard work into this. And the hard work is about to pay off. I'm so excited. When you listen to this interview, it's going to be hard for you not to feel excited for this opportunity. And inspired by her journey to where she's about to break through and well deserved. She spent so much of the last 20 plus years, raising her three amazing kids my two nieces Kaleigh and Emma and my nephew Landon. And now it is her time to shine. Listen to this interview. Feel it. I'm so excited. I hope you enjoy this. And I hope you go and check out Wear Your Wishes.com starting on the 28th. But let's take a walk and dive right into right now. An interview with Katie marks for Wear Your Wish

04:04 Wear Your Wish Interview 

Christopher Setterlund: Your company Wear your wish launches on the 28th of February just a few days away. But there's so much work that went into it. Take us back to the beginning when did the where your wish idea first come to you?

Katie Marks: When COVID happened and life got turned upside down for everybody. My life. You know what what I did for a living is everyone that knows me knows that I was a school bus driver. I was Miss Kate. I just knew that when it happened and the world kind of shut down. I kind of got put into a panic mode because I didn't know what I was going to do. You know I have an autoimmune disease. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to just jump back in the seat when the time came. And I always wanted to be in charge of myself. I didn't want to always have to answer to somebody else. I wanted to be a boss. 

I wanted to make changes in the world, I wanted to do so many things that are cliche, but I knew I could do it. I knew growing up the feelings that I would get the dreams I would have, I knew that I was meant to do more in my life. Some people say it takes him sometimes you have to just hit bottom before you know things get better. And I wasn't necessarily reaching a bottom. But I had reached a point in my life where I knew that here's my chance to try for something different because one I was home anyways, to I now had the time that I never had before. Because that type of work that I did, you had to literally be available for your job from five in the morning, all the way up until five at night, you never know, extra help, whether there's all sorts of stuff. So I never really had a chance just to sit during the day and focus on me, my life, my dreams. I found myself sketching again, I found myself drawing again, I found myself doing the things I used to do when I was little. I decided I'm like, you know, I don't know what's making me do this all of a sudden, but I decided to take it a step further than I never did. And I started saying, Well, what can I do with this? There's a reason why I'm doing this. I just don't know why. I don't know why I don't know. What's drawing me to this again. Why did it take until I was over the age of 40. Life wasn't aligning for me to do what I always wanted to do until COVID happened. Once that happened. I just said, You know what, I'm never going to get this chance. Again. If I don't do this right now. I'm never going to do it. 

CS: It's ironic when you talk about COVID breeding an opportunity because literally, this podcast right here springs from COVID. The whole thing about being your own boss, I totally get it. 

KM: And I was always told by Grampa, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. You know, that's something that I can remember him saying when I was younger, I remember him saying that when we would be talking and I could always you know, I cuz I remember I'd ask them a question about why would you want to get up so early to go to the to the donut shop, you know who wants to do that you know, who wants to get up that early, you know, that stinks. I wouldn't want to do that. And he used to always say if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. He loved it. And I wanted to love what I did. I wanted to be proud of what what I was doing. And I'm not saying I wasn't proud, I was very proud to, you know, to be a bus driver. I was I loved the kids, I love the family. But I don't think it's ever going to be a comparison to working for somebody else to working for yourself. 

CS: So in addition to becoming your own boss, what has been the most rewarding part for you of this entire journey to this moment, what's been the most rewarding part? 

KM: To this point, I'm gonna say, My children being proud of me. And not that I'm saying they were never proud of me before. But you know, growing up being a teen mom to kind of following in the shadows, people you went to school with being home young with kids, I didn't have a career, didn't own a home, seeing my friends in college, having fun, doing the things that I always thought I was gonna do. And once my kids were older, they were at a point where they really needed to be influenced positively influence someone to look up to, you know, I wanted to be that person, but I was also young myself, and made lots of mistakes on the way with them. And I know when I used to have times by myself, and it wasn't a lot when you were a parent, you know, I would always say when I would be speaking to whoever was listening to me, you know, I want my kids to be proud of me. I want my children when they are adults, for them to be able to say they were proud of me. I didn't do this looking for that. But that's one of the side effects. My my whole outlook on life is better. Now. My whole outlook in general is better because I wake up happy. I want to I say go to work but you literally going to work as opening my laptop. I love going to work. I love my zoom meetings with my great team I have. I love seeing my girls excited for their mom. I love seeing them sharing on their social media is how proud they are of me. And also sharing my vision with people and seeing the look on their face when they get it. It's not as easy to just say you know Wear your wish, It's about wishing. Yeah, it is. But it's more than that. It's the feeling, it's the emotion, when I sit down, and I explain it to people, and then they get it, and then they can start to kind of share back with me the feelings that they got, and hearing, they're getting exactly what I want them to get. It's great, it's a great feeling. 

CS: Naturally, with the rewarding part of the journey, there's also difficulties. So anyone who might be listening to this that's looking to be an entrepreneur themselves, what have been some of the challenges that you've had to go through, because this has been a long process? 

KM: To anybody that's looking to start a business and in my type of I think any business knowledge is power, do you cannot have enough knowledge when you're starting your own company, reach out to people and reach out to them again, a lot of times you ask somebody, can I buy you a coffee and you know, have an information download? Can I plug into your brain for a second? Can you just let me pick your brain for a second, you'll be surprised the people that will sit down with you, you're benefiting, but they're benefiting because they realize that they are doing something that somebody else sees as valuable. And you're getting value from from their words. So for me, I thought I knew more than I knew, when I started this, you know, I literally thought it was going to be just as easy as Okay, I want to start my own business. So I started going on YouTube, and I started looking up starting your own business. And I would be writing stuff down and watching more writing stuff down emailing people, I would find that it doesn't matter how many videos you watch, it doesn't matter how many people you talk to, there's always going to be something someone else didn't tell you. There's going to be a little Easter egg that somebody else has for you. And for me, I think I personally jumped the gun a little bit. When I first started, I had the right steps, but I went out of order. And had I gone in order, it would have saved me expensive mistakes. And when I say expensive mistakes, I mean, it's not just Hey, I think I want to you know, start a business. There's legal aspects of it, depending on the line of work like me. There's trademarking involved, if you want to do business under a different name, which I found I had to do. That was the expensive mistake I'm talking about. So just make sure before you sit down and you're going to swipe your card and make an investment on yourself, because it's an investment, a lot of times to start your own business, it's not free to you know, it cost me some money to get my business started, you know, with the like I said that the trademarking that, making sure that my stuff was legal, making sure that my name wasn't being used by somebody else. I had to make sure it was all done the right way, which is why Here we are in February, and I started this business A while ago, and I'm still not launched yet. Because I needed to make sure the T's were crossed, the I's are dotted, there are no hidden little things that are going to pop out. Again, had I done all the research, I would have been prepared, and those hurdles wouldn't have been hurdles.

CS: For all that struggle to get where you're at now comes the time where the launch is eminent like we said at the top of the interview 28th of February, Wear Your Wish goes live. So what I want to do for all the listeners out there of the podcast once the launch occurs, what is it that you're going to have out there for sale? And where can the listeners find your products. 

KM: So the website is called Wear your wishes.com and my product line is starting with I call it my lounge line. And it's literally just starting with all of my original designs from way back up until maybe last year that I tweaked a little bit. It'll be some sweatshirts, some lounge pants, t shirts, tanks, I have some hats. We have so many things coming out really cool things coming out. And I wanted to see how this was going to do. I guess you could say I wanted to see how the world is going to react to wear your wish. How are they going to feel about my designs, my branding, the idea behind it, you know, are they going to get the good good feels that I want them to get once the launch happens. I think it's going to probably be when we shoot for our spring summer campaign. That's when you're going to see more of we have like blankets, we have pillows. We have cups. We have bags, we have jewelry, we have wall stuff, we have so much stuff that it's I didn't you know, just I wanted to release a little at a time so that I could you know, see where people are at how are they receiving it because I want this to be almost, you know, we kind of go back and forth with each other I get lots of feedback from people have designs that they like or types of outfits, they like clothing they like do they prefer more of a certain type of shirt over different shirts, same thing for bags, same things for cups, same things for stuff, I wanted to make sure that all of the stuff that I was putting out was stuff that I knew that people were going to like. So I wanted to start off small, and then grow.

CS: That makes sense, don't put everything out there at the beginning make people want it more. So you've got a lot of different designs to I don't want to say alternate ones, but you've got like a main design and some other different ones. 

KM: So my my branding that you got that people see on my Instagram, and on my Facebook, my brandings, my logos and stuff like that those were literally years of all of my designs that were made into one concept. My designs are literally they're so different, you're never gonna it's like and I made sure I talked to a lot of people when I say, you know, I have some of my designs are very delicate, and intricate, and pretty. And then I have ones that are just like, Hey, here's here's a beautiful star, or I have it's written I have instead of it being pictures, there's just words and you know, there could be a dandy lion with the star together, or it's just the star, which I mean, I have so many different things. And then I have designs that you have to take a second and look at it. But when you look at it, you get it. For instance, my logo, where the are going into the eye, so it's the star, it's the dandy lion going into the star. But in between the seeds, you'll notice there's an 11-11, you'll find in my designs, I have a lot of 11-11 and 11-11 is a very important number for me. I haven't met one person yet that when I say what do you think of when you think of 11-11? They'll say make a wish? Or they'll say Oh, it's the you know, it's the wishing number or it's, you know, when I see that number, I look for that number and I make a wish or it's synchronicities. It's, you know, for the very spiritual people, for the people that believe in signs for the kids that just don't really know what it is they just know when it's 11-11. They say make a wish, I mean that was on even on those designs, you'll you'll find something in there that you wouldn't even you but you have to look for it. I won't tell you where it is. But you'll all of a sudden you'll just see it and you're like, oh, which is why I made sure my site was where your wishes because nine times out of 10 your items gonna have more than one wish. 

CS: All right, so the 28th Wear your wish is launched, what comes next? What are the plans for the rest of 2021? 

KM: I see once we hit the spring and summer, I see us making a bigger splash than the ripple that we're making right now. Just due to COVID a lot of things we're not able to do that we weren't really want to do. I have a lot collection that will be coming out. Just think of like things that you think of when you think of law, the horseshoe, you know the four leaf clover Ladybug, I asked people A while ago, you know what they give me ideas of what you think that are lucky. I have always wanted to be able to help others and I tried to do it as much as I can. My wish I could could do it more. You know, I ultimately I see myself being able to give back to the community give back just in general. I'm hoping that my company will get to the point where I'm able to do that. 

CS: So you've got the website Wear your wishes.com. Where else I know you said Instagram, if you want to just give any thing you want plugged as far as Instagram I know you've got a Facebook page just so that the people listening can go and find you. 

KM: If you go on Wear your wishes.com and enter your email address there's a contest being run that everybody that signs up on my my list gets entered in to win a free hoodie. On Instagram. It's Wear your wish with a dot in between each word on Facebook. It's just Wear your Wishes. My logo is a dandelion a with where your wish right next to it. 

CS: That all sounds great. It's really exciting and it's been a long time coming. I know I've been

hearing all about as you went on, and it's so exciting that it's finally here. Like we've been saying, I've had a lot of people have told you like it's getting good reviews and feel like I can see this taking off. And that's why it's great to get you on the podcast. And have you talked about it now before we're gonna watch the whole journey because where your wish is going to be a frequent sponsor of this podcast time you have something new you want shared, like you said, the luck line, all you got to do is just say, I got this coming out, can you share it? Yep. 

KM: You know, anybody out there don't ever, ever think that there's something that's not in your grasp, it's I never thought this dream of mine would be something that could come to fruition. You know, I've done this all by myself, I just would be saving money. My children never had a need or want for anything, I made sure they had everything. But at the end of the day, I would be saving money. And I never really knew what I would be saving money for. But I would just not spend it. And I know now that everything was aligning for me to be in this position where that money was going to be the investment I made in myself. So it's possible. Sometimes it may take a little longer, your resources may be different. You may have lots of people in your lifeboat that can help you. But if you have the drive, and you you have a vision, just do it. If you can only do it in your spare time here and there. Do it as much as you can to the point where you can take it to the next level, because I'm telling you, it's the best feeling.

CS: Well, you have gone from wearing your wish to now living your wish. Thank you so much. We look forward to watching the journey and being a part of it. 

KM: That's right, thanks, guys.

21:56 Back In the Day - Playing Manhunt

We're in February now, we're in the full grips of winter, spring is still several weeks away, we've been getting hit with snow, just every few days, I wanted to go way back in the day for this episode of the podcast with some nice summer memories. When you were a kid playing hide and seek was one of the fun games that you did. It was simple. You could do it with a bunch of people. But what about as you get a little bit older, kind of a more extreme version of hide and seek. I'm sure most of you have played this game, when you were growing up, maybe it had a different name for it. But where I grew up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, in New England, we referred to this game, as manhunt for any of you that are younger, that may not have ever heard of such a game or played such a game. Essentially, man hunt is Hide and Seek in the dark after dark. Most of the stuff that I'm going to share with you from my experience of playing this in my neighborhood growing up, you probably couldn't get away with these days, unfortunately. But I will just preface this whole thing by saying nothing we did was malicious, it was all in fun. We were looking to literally play hide and seek in the dark. I'll explain it, how I remember playing it and what the rules kind of were. 

So in our neighborhood growing up, this was probably 1990-91. So I was 12-13ish. The idea was after dark, a group of neighborhood kids, sometimes as many as 10 to 12 kids would meet up in front of my house. And one person would be the hunter almost like being in a horror movie like a serial killer coming after you the huntees. The hiders would get five minutes to scatter and go and hide somewhere in the neighborhood. And then after five minutes, usually me would leave my front step and seek them. Now the first thing about Manhattan in the old neighborhood that was really unique was the size of the area that people were allowed to hide. So we had this nice little neighborhoods set away from any main roads. So it was very safe, the roads were all quiet. And essentially it was like a rectangle of streets. One street went straight ahead from my house and hooked around to the right and you'd have a rectangle. You could hide on any of those streets. There was, I believe six total streets that made up this rectangle with some cross streets. So I just looked it up because I was curious. This area that people were allowed to hide in was a total of almost 12 acres. Imagine 12 acres of land in the dark that you could get to hide in. Sometimes the younger kids that played in the neighborhood were easier to find. They they were sometimes as young as eight or nine including my siblings, and then their friends that were their age. They would kind of just walk the streets because they were too scared to go hide in the dark and I would eventually find them and you basically just had to tag them. Although you can make a dramatic like it was a movie. Like you were killing them. But once they were caught, they had to go back to the house and sit on the front step until everybody was tagged, or somebody made it back to the step alive. And we took this manhunt seriously, we would hide in people's yards. This is where I said it was all in good fun. We were looking to hide from the person that was hunting us. I keep saying it was a different time it was 30 years ago, back when you still could just walk outside and stay out until the streetlights came on. That just doesn't happen anymore. 

In the rare occasions that I wasn't the one doing the hunting, and I got to go and hide, I was never found. And I'll tell you why. So sometimes I would go in between people's yards and cross through from street to street. And if I felt that I was close to being caught, I would go under people's decks and hide under their nice and dirty under someone's deck in their backyard, who if you're 10-11-12 years old is going to go looking under everyone's deck because you couldn't bring a flashlight, it was your eyes only. It was fun. There were little cul de sacs in the neighborhood. It felt like you were in a movie, you were hiding from the killer. And you didn't have to go alone. I mean, if we had 10 to 12 people playing, you could pair up there wasn't a rule like that. It was more of just you had to leave the area in front of my house and go and hide somewhere that was basically the only rule after five minutes, you could come and run back and be safe. But I'll tell you my two most favorite classic stories from the manhunt days that will explain why I still fondly remember this game. 

So this is probably 1990 we had one of the kids that was playing. She had never played before and she was terrified. She was a little bit afraid of the dark but she wanted to play because some of her friends were playing. So we made her feel safe by giving her a golf club to hold on to a security. One of the smaller irons to iron three iron, whatever it was, and we told her she had to go hide. She didn't go that far. What made it scarier was I had this glow in the dark hockey mask that I had gotten for Halloween probably 87 or 88. And being a big fan of horror movies Friday the 13th. I of course, doctored it up to look like the mask that Jason Voorhees wore, and I would play it up for everyone like I was Jason stocking them throughout the neighborhood. That was always fun, and I pretend I was killing them. So this girl she was just so scared and I was coming down the road I could see her she was basically in the street because she didn't want to hide in the dark and she was clutching the golf club like it was her best friend. And I did my Jason thing I sneaked up on her and spooked her grabbed her shoulder and she screamed and pulled away and turned around and swung that golf club and caught me right between the eyes with it. I don't remember if she dropped the golf club and ran home. But she was gone. I dropped to my knees and just held my face. Luckily the mask broke the impact. And the funny thing is I still have that mask. It's now all old. I don't know if it glows in the dark anymore, but it's got a crack right across from one eye hole to the other from where she hit me in the face with a golf club 30 years ago. 

The second story is probably my favorite. It's one of my favorite stories to tell from my childhood period. So being a horror movie fan, I also had the Freddy Krueger gloves. It's Freddy from A Nightmare on Elm Street, one of the Halloweens I had and it was a plastic one not with real knives. I think actually one of our dogs chewed the nails up on it at one point so it got ruined, but at this point it was still complete. And for a long time, my friend Matt, who we had grown up together, he lived a few houses down from me. He always wanted to be the hunter the Jason and I would be stubborn and just say no, you're not wearing my mask. So one time I relented and gave him the Freddy glove and a hat to wear so for this game of manhunt, there would be two killers, just like the Freddy vs. Jason movie, except this was 1991. And we were way ahead of our time. The gist of this game was that we would go out and we hunted everyone. And once they were all rounded up, we went into my backyard with the spotlight on the grass the yard, and it would be the big final battle between Freddy and Jason. And the rest of the kids that had played we're kind of gathered around it was like watching a street fight in an alleyway. And here we are Freddy and Jason Matt and I come together we were going to start to battle it out. And we had like five seconds where we were grappling and then it was probably me slipped in my dog's poop and fell into it. Both of us. We were just splattered and covered in dog poop lay in there. The game ended right after Trust me. We, we were done. It was like you couldn't have made that up. We're just slipped it feet up overhead and just splat on my back. Just a classic moment. I love those days. 

Like I was saying, You can't do that these days, I don't think. I mean, sometimes the neighborhood's you've got that are quiet, you might be able to play tag if I would bet if you were playing like we did, the police would get called on you. We were doing nothing malicious. But at times, we could be loud. And it would sometimes be 9-930. At night, we'd be out playing this in people's backyards. So yeah, I guess looking back, we were lucky, because I could see that being a problem these days. The irony is that I always talk about the onset of grunge music and Nirvana, kind of changing my view and opening my eyes and basically, manhunt went the way of the dodo bird after Nirvana came out. We didn't play anymore after that we had all the same kids, but you get to be 13-14 you kinda change your view. So it was only a couple years that it was a big thing. We'd play it in the summer 2-3-4 times a week, we'd gather everyone get on our bikes and go to people's houses as they were playing man hunt tonight. Make sure you come up to the house at dusk or after dark 830-9 o'clock. I definitely miss those days. Did you guys play man hunt? Did you call it something else? I feel like hide and seek after dark was a common thing. It was definitely not a cape cod game. 

Did any of you have any funny stories like the Jason mask that I had getting smashed with a golf club or falling in dog poop? I think there was one time that I jumped off a shed onto a kid and I thought I broke his arm. I didn't. But that was one of those you're 13 years old. You think you're invincible. I jumped down off the shed on him. That was crazy. But I hope those stories gave you some warm summer memories as we keep going through winter. Don't worry, spring will be here eventually.

31:50 How I Got Out to Great Island

There are two fun cliché catchphrases in life that I like to spout. One is, it's as much about who you know is what you know. And the other one is sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. And both of these store the catchphrases come together and one of my favorite stories to tell. And that's the story of how I got out to one of the most highly secure places on all of Cape Cod. And that's Great Island in West Yarmouth. So flashback to 2011 I had gotten my first book deal for the In My Footsteps A Cape Cod travel guide book through Schiffer. And I spent a lot of time researching places I wanted to include. And some of them were places I hadn't been. And the idea behind that was I could say I'm writing a book and I can put your whatever in the book. And it maybe would be a way to get me in there. Every place that I had to contact for permission. All said yes, including Wings Neck lighthouse, which is in Pocasset. And that's on private property. But the people that run it, that manage it, they gave me permission to go out there and shoot it for the book and they said if anyone says anything you tell them that I said you could go out there and that was nice. It made the book feel more of a complete Cape Cod. That is until I tried to get out to what was my crown jewel at the time, a spot called Point Gammon lighthouse at the tip of Great Island in West Yarmouth. Point Gammon is part stone part wood. It's conical in shape at the bottom. And it was originally built in 1816. And it actually was decommissioned in 1858. So it's been sitting out there just kind of as a reminder of a bygone era for over 150 years. And I'll get more into Point Gammon lighthouse and its history on its own in a future podcast. But I like to tell the story of how I ended up face to face with this lighthouse. 

Essentially in 2011 and 2012. I tried a couple of times to contact the Great Island Housing Authority. And I stated my case I said, I'm writing a book about Cape Cod, I'm going to showcase all these places. I said, I would love to have permission to go out there and just take a few pictures of point gammon lighthouse is that you can chaperone me and you can see the photos. I tried to make it real easy on them. The first time I called they literally said no and hung up. That was my conversation with them. So I tried a second time. And I called up and I stated my case again about the lighthouse. And the response this time was 'what lighthouse?' which is funny if you know Cape Cod, if you know the Great Island. If you go to Craigville beach in Centerville and you look towards the east. You can see Point gammon lighthouse out there. It's got to be 60 feet tall or 60 feet above sea level. You can't miss it. So they were really playing it up just trying to get me to go away saying there wasn't even a lighthouse out there. 

My deadline came and passed for the first book. I had to go with what I had. 95 places, it's still it's very comprehensive when it comes to things to see on Cape Cod. But I didn't stop my quest to get out there and get a photo of the lighthouse. I did an interview for Cape Cod magazine. And when they asked me where they wanted to meet with me and take a photo of me somewhere that was in the book, and I very strategically suggested Keyes beach in Hyannis, which is you head south off of Main Street. The reason I chose that spot was because it had the best vantage point of Point Gammon lighthouse. While we were there, taking some photos, it was a winter afternoon, I just casually mentioned, you see that lighthouse back there. And I started telling the story about how it was supposed to be in the book. And they they kind of mentioned it in the interview in the magazine, but nothing came of it. I thought that maybe it would guilt, great Island into letting me out there. But it didn't. 

My next opportunity to get out there came a couple years later, when my mother's second husband, my first stepfather. He had been doing some part time work at the guard shack to get out to the island. And he had dropped, mentioned to the people that he worked for that I was interested in getting a photo of the lighthouse. So they agreed, but here was all the catches. First of all, they had to chaperone me which that's understandable. Second of all, they said I could get one photo. And third was I could never show it to anyone, let alone post it on social media. So it would literally be like just my memory of going out there. I would have one photo that I couldn't show anyone it would be like FBI classified. I kindly turned them down. I said I'd rather not go at all than have that happen. Time passed again until 2016, five years ago this month. When I finally got out there. One of my mom's oldest friends, Debbie, she's very well known in the town of Yarmouth. her kids grew up with my siblings, I spent so much of my high school years down there in her house, hanging especially with her son, Rob, who's a couple years younger than me, but we were really tight. Our families were really tight. And she got in touch with me saying that she had a friend that had a house on Great Island. She was selling the house. So people were going out there and she was selling like an estate sale, selling furniture and such. And she was excited to tell me that she had gotten me a day pass to go out there. So she was already an invited guest of her friend. And then there was an extra day pass for me. So I was going to get to go out to point gammon lighthouse, or at least I thought we drove down the approach to the guard shack and pulled up and there's the guard there. 

Debbie explains the situation. She has a friend that lives out there selling her house, we're going out there. And we might just take a little drive out to the lighthouse because she said, this guy's an author, he just wants a photo of the lighthouse. He's been trying for years, we have a day pass, he showed him the day pass. Even with all of that, he still was hesitant. So he's looking at it like he doesn't want to get in trouble for letting us out there despite the fact that we have permission, which is just too funny. That's how strict it is. Eventually, he relented and gave us 10 minutes total. So we passed the guard shack started driving out there. After the guard shack, maybe a couple 100 yards out there. There's another guard check. This one was empty, because it's February, you keep driving past there. And eventually you get to a third layer of security, which is a chain link fence with the keypad on it. It was open because it's February and there's not many people out there. And we kept driving further. Right. It's about two miles to the end of the island. But the guard at the first guard shack had said, Keep an eye out because there's a man that lives out there. And basically his only job is to look for cars that don't belong. And he said that Debbie was lucky because her car looks like someone who lives out there. So he was unlikely to call the security for layers of security. 

We pulled up to the lighthouse. It was like a scene out of a movie. I had a little Fuji finepix camera, tiny one and my iPhone 3. And I jumped out and I ran all around. I had four or five minutes most and I just started snapping pictures, tons of them. I said I'll enjoy them later. Just get what you can while you can. I did make sure during my time out there to give the lighthouse a big hug and a kiss. And there's a photo that Debbie took of me kissing the lighthouse which is one of my favorite photos because it was a harrowing journey to get out just to get pictures of this. I think I ended up with two dozen photos. We went back thank the guard. And I had those photos edited and posted all over Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and I just didn't tag great Island or anyone like that. I didn't want to rub it in too much and maybe get Debbie in trouble. But oh, believe me, I have great pleasure in sharing those photos as much as I can, as a way of saying, Yeah, you tried to keep me out. But eventually I got in, and great Island, they are very strict with who they let out there. 

Here's another story, my mother, she was walking one time on seagull beach, which is neighboring to great Island, and there's no fence blocking the property. There's a sign that says end of public beach, but if you're down by the low tide, you're not going to see. And she was just walking on the beach. And she crossed the line. And she didn't know it and security came out and told her to turn around and go back walking on the beach. She wasn't even thinking of going out of the lighthouse or bothering anyone. But that's how strict they are. It's very, very much off limits unless you live out there. So my buddy Steve, who I've mentioned several times on here. He's the one we go and we travel a lot. And we take photos a lot. He's probably the best photographer that I've known. I've learned a ton from him just his skill. He used to work for a newspaper, and he's got a lot of knowledge. So he was needless to say, a little jealous that I got to go out to Point Gammon light. And I told him I said I had to go at that time, I couldn't wait. And I'll never forget because he wanted to go out and get some photos of the lighthouse. So what we did was we left using his boat. We put it in the water at Bass River at smuggler's beach in West Yarmouth, which is right on the river. And if you head out just to the south of the lighthouse, around great Island, you can get some good photos, but there's a lot of big boulders just under the water that would damage a boat, hence the reason why they needed a lighthouse there. In order to get to the lighthouse, the southern end of great Island from smuggler's beach. It's over 4 1/2 miles on the water. So I was prepared for a long time out there. The problem was we got about 1/2 mile out, and the engine for his boat died. And we ended up stuck. We were bobbing and bouncing and spinning around. And Lucky me I hadn't taken any Dramamine. I get seasick. We sat out there for like 45 minutes until his brother had to come and tow us back into port. Our attempt to go back out for me and the first time for Steve to point gammon light was a failure. Hopefully later this year when it gets warm in the summer. Maybe we'll try it again. But that's up to him. That's he's the one with the boat and I don't want to the rocks out there dangerous. 

But anyway, you slice it five years ago this month, I finally got out to see my white whale point gammon lighthouse. And that's thanks 100% to Debbie Clark. So I wanted to give her a shout out and a thank you. And I love those photos. I'm always sharing them I just did a couple of weeks ago. That's my white whale. What's yours? What is the one spot whether it's Cape Cod anywhere in New England anywhere in the world, that you're desperate to go and see. Let me know. Give me an email. Christopher Setterlund@gmail.com. Share with me the places you'd like to go. Maybe I've been there. Maybe I can help you get out there.

43:15 This Week In History

It is time for this week in history. Once again, let us dive into some stories that have happened this week, going back in time this week in history. 118 years ago, on February 21, 1903, the Cape Cod telephone company was incorporated. It became the first major telephone company on Cape Cod after the creation of the telephone more than 20 years earlier. The first president was F. Percy Goss, vice president was Arthur Gayer Once it was incorporated, they immediately began erecting polls in the Mid Cape area, and by September of that year they had 15 miles of telephone lines. The company would keep expanding their reach eventually into your mouth, and for several years the Cape Cod telephone company was a monopoly on Cape Cod. For much of that first decade of the 20th century, they ended up topping out with many miles of lines. But over 200 phones, which today sounds like nothing, there's more than 200 phones on the street I live on, but back in 1903 through the end of the first decade of the 20th century, that was pretty big after a short run as a monopoly on Cape Cod. The Cape Cod telephone company was sold in June 1913 to the New England Telegraph and Telephone company over the years through many other acquisitions. New England Telegraph and Telephone is now Verizon, and, although it's run on the top, was very brief. The Cape Cod telephone company is nonetheless important in those early days of the telephone industry. 

This week in history. 142 years ago, February 22, 1879 the F W. Woolworth Company was formed, Founded in New York City By Frank Winfield Woolworth. It was the first actual discount retail chain as far as department stores go, the 5 and 10 store in other words, a store that sells everything in stock for 10 cents or less. Woolworth took full advantage of being the first chain store within the first decade. They had 21 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Connecticut. By 1904, Woolworth had expanded almost nationwide, with 120 stores in 21 states as far away as Colorado. In 1913, the company had gotten so big that the Woolworth building. The company's headquarters in New York City was built, and it was the tallest skyscraper in the world until 1930. When the Empire State Building was built in New York City. Throughout the 20th century, Woolworth continued to grow. They actually acquired other store chains, including Kinney Shoes and Foot Locker. But by the 1980's, Kmart was kind of creeping in and taking some of their business that would be exacerbated by Walmart and Target. I can remember there being a Woolworth in the Cape Cod mall growing up that I believe went out of business, probably 93 or 94 and I can remember going in there with my friend John when they were having the big going out of business sale, and it looked like a bomb went off inside the store. By 1997, Woolworth had gone out of business as far as a traditional retail store in the United States. But Woolworth actually kept going through the end of the 20th century. They actually the company changed its name to Foot Locker incorporated, so Woolworth became more of an online brand, and there are a few stores still around, though they're very hard to find. It is a far cry from how big this company was growing up in the 21st century. The younger generation. You have no idea how big Woolworth was. But just like the five and 10 discount stores, Woolworth has kind of gone the way. Being a part of history. Woolworth had a legacy that lasted more than 120 years, and this week in history, 142 years ago, the F W. Woolworth Company got its start in New York City.

This week in history 41 years ago. February 22nd 1980. The U. S hockey team defeats the Soviet Union in the Miracle on Ice Game. It is widely known as one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports, where a team of basically unknowns on the American team defeated the Soviet team that was considered by many to be possibly the best hockey team ever assembled. 10,000 fans attended the game in Lake Placid, New York, at the Olympic Winter Games to watch the American team of basically college players go up against the Soviet team that had won the previous four Olympic gold medals. And actually, three days before the Olympic Games began, the Soviets played the Americans and destroyed them 10 to 3, in an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden. Very few people gave the Americans a chance when the two played again after the Soviets had blasted through with five victories in the first round, the Soviets scored first, and they actually took a 2 to 1 lead and again a 3 to 2 lead before Mark Johnson tied the game at three. And then, with a little more than 10 minutes to play, Mike Eruzione scored to give the Americans a 4 to 3 lead, and then they had to drain the clock and the crowd was going insane. They made a movie about it. If you've ever seen the end of this game with Al Michaels call, do you believe in miracles? It's unbelievable. Besides just being a victory over the Soviets in hockey, it was seen as symbolic of the Cold War, with the Americans defeating the Russians, and the Americans would go on two days later to defeat Finland and get the gold medal. But 41 years ago this week, the Miracle on Ice became one of the biggest moments in American sports history. 

Finally, this week in history, also 41 years ago this week, February 27th, 1980 the first and only Grammy for disco recording goes to Gloria Gaynor for her song I Will Survive. The disco craze was mainly a 1970's thing with the origin in younger baby boomers who felt left out of the hippie counterculture it spawned in New York City in Philadelphia and kind of got its first exposure. When David Mancuso opened the loft in New York City in 1970 Disco continued its upward climb, basically peaking with the movie Saturday Night Fever. And you can think of bands like the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band, and others as being the prototypical disco artist. But the backlash came fast in July of 1979 the Chicago White Sox baseball team, they sponsored a disco demolition night where people brought in their disco albums, and they were essentially piled into center field and exploded during the between a doubleheader between the games. Despite finally having a Grammy for disco recording Disco basically started to fade away from the time those albums got blown up in 79. The name Disco would kind of be replaced with dance music, so the disco sound didn't die, but people didn't call it that. Basically, the song Fresh by Kool and The Gang, released in November 1984 is kind of regarded as the last disco hit, although disco had been basically dead for a few years. But this week in history, 41 years ago, the first and only Grammy for a disco recording was awarded to Gloria Gaynor for I Will Survive. 

For this week's time capsule, We're Going Back 43 years. This week, February 25th, 1978. Speaking of the Bee Gees, the #1 song in America was Staying Alive by the Bee Gees off of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It was the Bee Gees biggest hit and probably discos. Biggest hit. The #1 TV show was Laverne and Shirley, starring Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. The show lasted 178 episodes from 1976 through 1983 and began as a spin off of the Happy Days, TV show the #1 movie in America was Coming Home, a romantic drama war film starring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight. It grossed $36 million worldwide on a $3 million budget, was nominated for an Oscar for best picture and currently has an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and finally, a gallon of gas. On February 25th, 1978 was 65 cents, and that's gonna do it for a little time capsule. February 25th, 1978 and this week in history. I hope you enjoyed it. I think going forward the time capsule I won't always do a gallon of gas. I'm going to find other things. Price of a home price of a car just to keep it interesting. Tune in for the next episode of the podcast, with more this week in history 

52:59 Closing

And that's gonna do it for Episode 11 of the In My Footsteps Podcast, my third in three weeks. So needless to say, next week there will not be a podcast. It will be in two weeks. Thank you so much to everyone who has listened to any of these podcast that I've been creating over the last 4, 4 1/2 months. Now, what I'm going to try to do in this off week is maybe come up with some sort of either questionnaire or something. I just want feedback on what people have liked. You know? Have you liked the this week in history? Have you liked the road trips or the back in the day or the main stories that I've been doing? Because I've learned as as I started putting together this podcast, you need to always be checking in with the listeners on what they like. You can't just keep putting out the same content and assume people like it because you never know. So if you're listening to this and you hear that you can hit me up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I have in my footsteps podcast pages on Instagram and Facebook Chris Setterlund is my handle on Twitter. You can subscribe on YouTube to my podcast videos. Soon enough when it gets warmer out, I'm going to be doing more 4K New England videos, But you can go catch up on those. Go check out my Zazzle store, Cape Cod Living that has a nice Massachusetts after dark calendar with a lot of my long exposure night photography that are 

pretty cool. I enjoy doing that usually when it's warm or not cold like it is right now. Also, I'm excited to say now that the in my footsteps podcast is available on my home page, Christopher Setterlund.com, my home website that was designed and has been maintained by my oldest friend, Barry Menard, a great graphic designer. We grew up together and I've wanted, I asked him. I said, I want to promote you on this podcast and he's He's very humble. He's supremely talented as far as graphic design, writing music and just as being a person in general. So you'll be hearing more about him. I pump him up a lot, but I wanted to make sure that you knew that if you see that on my website. That's all his handiwork. Remember February 28th, Wear your wish. Katie Marks my sister. Her clothing apparel accessories company is launching. Go to Wear your wishes.com follow her on Instagram. Follow her on Facebook. Find it all because this company is going to blow up. 2021 is going to be her year, and I'm really excited, and I hope you all are, too, and show her some support. Stay tuned. 

In two weeks for Episode 12 of the podcast, we're going to be taking a look back at the Rocky Point amusement park in Warwick, Rhode Island. I'll be sharing all the details of what went into the ancestry D n. A test that I took and my results. That's going to be fun. As much as I love my history and my family tree, you'll enjoy it. I'll make it fun. We're going to go way, way back in the day to what it was like to watch film strips and educational TV shows in school. That feeling you got when you walked into a class and a T V or a projector was sitting there and how exciting it was. We'll have this week in history and much more. But thank you so much again for listening to this podcast. You can find it wherever you get your podcast. ITunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora Amazon music. I heart radio all of those. Thank you so much. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps, create your own path and enjoy this journey every day. The very best you can. Thank you so much and I'll talk to you guys again soon.