In Episode 12 I share the process and results of my Ancestry DNA test. There were definitely a few surprises but overall it was a highly informative and positive experience. I'll let you know the nuts and bolts of the process for anyone who was thinking of purchasing a test kit for themselves.
We take a look back at one of the originals of New England amusement parks, Rocky Point. Based in Warwick, Rhode Island it existed in one form or another for almost 150 years. From picnicking to political speeches, to clambakes and fantastic rides Rocky Point Amusement Park made memories for generations of New Englanders.
Next we go way Back In the Day to those exciting times that you'd get to school and see a film projector or television sitting in a dimly lit class. I found several classic educational films I'll share, plus best of all I'll link you to a motherload list of films for you to check for yourself!
This Week In History includes the world's first telephone call, a creation of one of the all-time great board games, and more!
Also be sure to check out my new livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 5pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this episode.
Check out Episode 11 here.
In Episode 12 I share the process and results of my Ancestry DNA test. There were definitely a few surprises but overall it was a highly informative and positive experience. I'll let you know the nuts and bolts of the process for anyone who was thinking of purchasing a test kit for themselves.
We take a look back at one of the originals of New England amusement parks, Rocky Point. Based in Warwick, Rhode Island it existed in one form or another for almost 150 years. From picnicking to political speeches, to clambakes and fantastic rides Rocky Point Amusement Park made memories for generations of New Englanders.
Next we go way Back In the Day to those exciting times that you'd get to school and see a film projector or television sitting in a dimly lit class. I found several classic educational films I'll share, plus best of all I'll link you to a motherload list of films for you to check for yourself!
This Week In History includes the world's first telephone call, a creation of one of the all-time great board games, and more!
Also be sure to check out my new livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 5pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this episode.
Check out Episode 11 here.
00:00 Intro
Hello World! How's everybody doing out there this Welcome to the in my footsteps Podcast. I am your host Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This is Episode 12. How is everybody been doing since the last time we got together? Episode 11 was two weeks ago. The end of my three shows in three weeks streak. I'm starting another one here. I hope everybody's had a good time. It's getting closer to spring, you can feel the change in the air. I hope I get tired of winter quicker and quicker every year. I think I was tired a winter the day before it started this year.
I want to thank everybody who made Episode 11 the interview with Katie Marks for her Wear your Wish clothing and apparel company launch my second most downloaded episode ever so far in its first week. That means a lot seeing her get to do something that she's been dreaming of doing. And the fact that so many of you responded to that, that makes me feel great. So I appreciate that a lot. If you haven't listened to it. Or if you want to listen to any of the previous episodes, you can find the in my footsteps podcast at iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, and the entire Wear your wish interview unedited well, hardly edited is at YouTube. Speaking of YouTube, if you want to go so three years ago, last week, there was a huge storm on Cape Cod in the northeast. And I have a video it was winter storm Riley was the name of it. I don't know why they named winter storms like hurricanes, I wouldn't have remembered that if I hadn't gone and check to see what it was. But it was a terrible storm. It basically destroyed Nauset beach. And I'll never forget my sister Kate and her fiancé they went to I think it was Mohegan Sun for a weekend. And she asked me to check in on my nieces, because they'd been left home alone for the weekend. And so this storm big storm occurs and instead of just going over to check on them, I said, hey, let's go out in the storm and have an adventure. So I took my nieces who were 18 and 16. At the time out in this very dangerous storm. I shot some video on Instagram and put it up. And it was funny because I basically I sent my sister pictures of us out of these beaches and said don't worry, I checked on them, they're fine for now. Obviously they got home safe because I interviewed them for the podcast for episode nine. The funny thing about this storm was I do a lot of photography I've mentioned dedication to the craft and the photography like wanting to get the shot. Granted, it's not dangerous as like war photography or something like that. But I don't really have that concept of the danger I might put myself in. And this storm was the first time that I ever felt worried for my life. I went to Nauset beach, there's a secret entrance called Pochet Road in Orleans. It's basically the back way in it's kind of secret kind of not. But I went out there to shoot some photos as a little bridge that takes you over a creek, the Nauset Marsh out to where the RV trail is. And I remember just the waves flooding the RV trail. And I went out there to take pictures of the wave crashing across the beach. And the waves were coming right at me and I was on this little chunk of beach grass, and the water's going around me and that's the first and only time I've thought this is a mistake that I'm out here. I also I had shot a Facebook Live video I went live to the storm destroying Nauset Beach, and people are starting to comment on it. And then my phone died and the Facebook Live video was lost, which is terrible. Because of being that damage in real time I thought would have been neat to keep sharing over the years.
Luckily, I figured out how to do live streams. On February 26. I did my first without a map livestream on Instagram, which I said was kind of my postgame show for these podcasts. And without a map means I really don't have any notes. It's more free flowing. And it's fun. It's a way for me to interact with people that listen to the podcast and maybe get some people that haven't listened to go and listen to it and also get to chat with family and friends. That was fun. You can see it still on IGTV and on YouTube. And you can laugh at my rookie mistake, as I accidentally clicked a button to put my buddy Steve on the screen with me. And I couldn't figure out how to get rid of him. So I just left him there. So it's like him watching me do my live stream. I'll be trying to do those every Friday at 5pm. So if that's something that you want to check out, it's Instagram Live 5pm Fridays without a map for the in my footsteps podcast. But for right now, this is Episode 12. We've got me going over my ancestry DNA results and the whole process of going through that which was fun, we're going to take a trip back to Rocky Point amusement park in Warwick, Rhode Island, we're going to go way, way back in the day, to when we would watch film strips during class or educational TV shows that feeling you get when you'd walk in and there was a TV there, and you knew that class was going to be fun and easy. There'll be this week in history with another time capsule, and a lot more than that. So this is Episode 12. I am Christopher Setterlund. Thank you for tuning into the in my footsteps podcast. And Come on, let's go take a walk.
06:11 Ancestry DNA Review
So as most of you are aware, if you've listened to any of these podcasts, you know that I love history. And for those that don't like history, or are looking to get into history, one of the best ways you can kind of dip your toe into history is through researching your family history. And what better way to research your family history than the amazing website Ancestry.com. I have been a member of that website since the end of 2004. Although I didn't really start doing extensive research and building a family tree until 2007. The ancestry site itself is amazing. It's filled with census and documents that have to do with relatives and other people's trees that you can click on and research. It's neat you load in your own family tree. So for my family, I easily had myself parents, grandparents and great grandparents. And I was able to once you start to load that in the algorithm kind of connects you. So you'll get little leaf leafs on a tree like a family tree. And you click on those. And that's where you sort of find out, I would do it the same way that I was doing stories when I would write them for magazines or websites, you need two different corroborating sources before you run with it. So if I found a relative that I sue, that looks interesting, they might be my third great grandmother. Well, it's got to have more than one source because you never know you put in a wrong source and then your tree just falls over.
I began doing the Ancestry.com family tree for my Nana, I wanted to give her as much information about her roots before she passed away, I was able to trace her branch of the tree. So my own family, which is where all of my 12th generation Cape Codder when I say that on here or at book events and such, that's where it came from. And it's all thanks to Ancestry.com and the extensive amount of resources they have. So as of right now, this moment, I have 1566 people in my family tree, and I have matches that up until 400 years ago, I'm pretty positive about almost all of them. As you get back. It's sort of well, that might be you're related to them. But you can't be sure, but the furthest back I go is almost 1000 years. And that's through this site. And that's the English side because they have records that go back forever over there.
So once you start to hit the wall, when it comes to extending your family tree back, then you want to take the next step. In 2012, the ancestry site came out with their ancestry DNA kit, which is basically a way to further cement who you are and where you're from, and then connect you with relatives on the site, I decided to first dip my toe into the ancestry DNA kit by purchasing one for my mother for Christmas of 2018. So normally they sell for $99. But routinely during the year there will be sales. And I believe this was half off and I got it for $49 which is a pretty good deal. And I sent it to her and she went through the whole process and got her results to vary. It's one of those things that you think you know what you're made of, and then you get the DNA results and they may not be what you expect. So then kind of doubt it or debate it which I mean, who knows. So I decided this Christmas 2020 for myself to get my own kit and go through it so I could review it here on the podcast and let you all know my results, my feelings on it, see if any of you are going to take up doing the ancestry DNA, I ordered a kit for $59 on December the 11th. So that's when it got shipped on the 14th. So I want to go through this. So you kind of get an idea of what you'd expect from the beginning. So that's it, they shipped it, because of the Christmas holiday, it took a while to get to me. So January 4, is when it finally arrived, the test is easy. It comes with its own first class envelope, there's a little vial that you basically you have to spit in it until it reaches a certain line. And then you will mix it with this blue liquid. It's interesting, but you seal it, you put it in the first class envelope, whoosh, send it away, they received the sample on the 16th. And they went through all the process. And on February the 20th. So about five weeks later, I got the email that my DNA results were in. So that's basically the nuts and bolts of how long it takes. Your time might vary. It was about five weeks for me from shipment to getting results.
Let's get into the good stuff. What were the results, there are two main things that come with this ancestry DNA results. One is the ethnicity estimate. And two is the connection, your relatives that are on ancestry and how you're related. So it's incredible. First off, a few of the things I kind of knew would be true. So my greatest DNA makeup is England and Northwestern Europe, which was 32%, which I said that kind of makes sense. That's the don't tree right there. And then second was Irish 27%. No surprise there. That's my grandfather Sullivan. There we go. But then it got interesting. First shock was my last name. Setterlund is Swedish when the my family came over on the boat. The last name started with Z, it was Zetterlund. I thought I was more Swedish than I was, it turns out, I'm more Scottish than Swedish 7%, Swedish 8% Scottish, the big shock, and one that my mother insists can't be right is my grandmother on her side. She's Italian, not as much Italian as we thought, because we found her father was adopted. So we thought his real last name was Romano turns out that's his adopted last name. But so we expected some Italian in my tree, it turns out, there's zero, what I thought would be kind of the percentage for Italian was French 19%, French, and a lot of that is French Canadian, my family came to the gas Bay Peninsula, so no Italian. And we finished off with Norway and Portugal, that was kind of expected as well. But there was a shock.
But what about the DNA matches, so they'll give you the list and it goes from in descending order. So naturally, the first person on my results is my mother. So there you go. She's top of the list, I had several cousins that I know in real life that were on there as well, which was neat. In total, I had 654 people that were fourth cousins or closer, and I've had hardly any time to contact them. There were a few whose trees I had kind of taken parts of because it looks a lot like mine. But I haven't had a lot of time to contact them and say hey, cousin, I knew it was you. If you scroll down your DNA lists, I can't find an exact number. But there has to be a couple 1000 people on this list and they go way down. And they calculate your common DNA through a measurement known as a centimorgan. It's listed on their page as C with a lowercase c capital M. So for example, I didn't I don't know the exact definitions of these numbers, but my mother has a rating of 3483 centimorgans. And as you scroll down, they get down to numbers in the single digits for centimorgans. It's incredible. And there's tons of people. And these numbers will always get updated as more people go on to ancestry and do the DNA kit. So you'll keep getting emails, oh, you have a potential DNA match. And I've gotten one and it was another that was probably like eighth cousin. So you know, I'm looking for people that are first or second cousins that I don't know. In addition to that they have these communities that because of your DNA, you're a part of the one that I found the best for me was the Cape Cod and southern New England settlers group. Basically what it is, is it validates my 12 generation cape Cotter mantra that I say or slogan, however you want to phrase it with the proof like oh yeah, he's really from there. For me. I find all of this fascinating my love of history, and that desire to construct a very full and blooming family tree makes this just an awesome gift to myself. gift to someone else. I have twin sisters, Lindsay and Ashley. They're fraternal twins. And I want to give them both DNA kits and just see how different their DNA is. And for me, that would be fascinating. Ancestry.com does a two week free trial. So you can go and build your tree with no worry and no credit card and all that. They have birth, marriage and death records, military records, census records, like I said, and naturally as we go along with this podcast, I will have more information on some of these relatives that I found because there's some that are deeply connected to the history of Cape Cod and Massachusetts in New England. So their stories are fascinating anyway, it's not a lot of nepotism, where it's just me talking about my family, because some of them actually matter outside of my bloodline, I would highly recommend anyone who has any interest in their family history to do the two week trial at Ancestry.com they are not paying me they're not sponsoring me. I just really love their site and their products. And if you're not sure about it, and you're not sure about doing the trial, you can always shoot me a message Christopher Setterlund@gmail.com, or on any of my social media and just ask me, I've been doing this for we're looking at almost 14 years, I've been digging through this site. And the funny thing is, so I said, I have over 1500 relatives that I put down on this tree, there were people that my DNA matches, it had 20 something 1000 relatives, so I thought I had a good tree, it's like it's nothing compared to theirs. So there's a lot of room to do some stuff with ancestry. But that's my story of ancestry DNA. I give it a huge thumbs up, even though I thought I was gonna be Italian, and I was not. So definitely check it out. And if you do, let me know what you thought and what you found anything interesting.
16:58 Sponsor - Wear Your Wish
I wanted to just take a moment before I go on, to remind everyone to go and check out Wear your wishes.com that is the company run by Katie Marks my sister, I interviewed her for Episode 11. She gave an in depth, very inspirational and emotional interview on her journey as single mother to business owner. And now the launch occurred February 28. And where your wish is open for business, clothing and apparel. Go to there now and enter your email on the site where your wishes calm to be in the entry for a free hoodie. They've got so much more to come. But they've started launching, they're open for business to where your wish brand is built around wishes and desires and dreams, the where your wish the 11-11 making a wish when you see those numbers on the clock or anywhere. I will tell you for a fact that in the time, since I've interviewed her, I've had numerous 11-11 occasions, not just on my clock, but going to the store and getting a receipt for my total. And it's 11-11 $11.11 there's so much to see, go to the site, don't just take my word for it. Go back and listen to Episode 11. Listen to the interview, go watch the interview on YouTube. That's the more uncut one, I have to try to condense these for the podcast Wear your wishes.com is where you go get started. There's so much more to come. But I wanted to give a little reminder for everyone just go check it out. It's gonna be big 2021 is going to be big, Wear your wish at Wear your wishes.com
18:44 This Week In History
It's time once again for this week in history, we go back and we look at some stories from the past local national world pop culture, and we do a little bit of a time capsule to the new edition. Let's jump right in and see what was going on this week in history. 144 years ago, March 13, 1877. teenager Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine patented the earmuff. So Greenwood was 15 years old and he liked to go and skate on the ice of frozen ponds, but he couldn't stay out there long because his ears would get cold and he was allergic to the wool caps that ones that would come down with the flaps and cover your ears. So he had the basically the invention came out of necessity. So Greenwood asked his grandmother to sew pads of either beaver fur or flannel under the wire headband with two hoops on the ends. So Greenwood gets the credit for inventing the ear muffs. It's disputed. They say he didn't actually invent them he improved on them and created a V shaped swivel Hands that kept the ear muffs tight to the ears. Either way, it buoyed his confidence after the ear muffs came out, and Greenwood kept inventing. And he ended up with more than 100 patents. By the age of 28. Greenwood had created the Chester Greenwood and company factory in Farmington. Its best year was 1936 when the company produced 400,000 pairs of earmuffs, and every year Farmington celebrates their most famous resident with Chester Greenwood day on December 7, but this week in history, he either invented or improved upon the earmuffs.
This Week in history. 137 years ago, March 11, 1884, Kate Smulsey from Fort plain New York begins fasting after contracting a mysterious illness. This story is kind of interesting and sad at the same time, as in 1882. Smulsey was a dressmaker, when she contracted some sort of illness. Now it's debated whether she contracted an illness or not. But basically what happened was, she stopped eating. And as time went on, she spent more and more time just laying in bed, and she would have these blue glasses on to protect her eyes, which would become sensitive. She said, all food and water made her turn purple and bloat. And today, you hear these things, and you start to think, oh, she's got an eating disorder. But back in the 1880s, they didn't know. They thought it was something some kind of hysteria. And as the time went on through 1884, the news reports would go back and forth from being kind of jokey about like, wow, it's amazing that she can go and not eat and still survive, to more serious. And it just showed that people didn't really know what was going on with her. Some reports thought it was a hoax. Some reports thought she was an actress just pretending. But there will be updates provided all through New England, New York, the Northeast, and then nationwide, whether the reports were accurate or not. The bottom line was that after not eating essentially, for almost a year, or over a year, she died on April 9 1885. She was only 21 years old. And the reports were she weighed anywhere from 30 pounds to a little more than that. But when you look back on this 130 something years ago, with today's ideas and knowledge, it's apparent that Kate Smulsey was a victim of anorexia. And it's amazing looking back doing something like this, like this week in history and seeing not the ignorance of people back then, because they didn't know what it was, but just what people thought was going on with her when it's apparent to people today what it was. And even though they thought of it as kind of a hoax, then anorexia had actually been discovered and named in 1868 by Sir William Gall, who was physician to Queen Victoria. So it was there, but people didn't think of it. And so sadly, Kate Smulsey just withered away and didn't get the help that she needed. And 137 years ago this week, she began her fasting, which was actually heard the beginnings of anorexia.
This Week in history. 145 years ago, March 10 1876. Alexander Graham Bell speaks the first words into his telephone with the words 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.' Alexander Graham Bell proved he could talk with electricity. Those first words were spoken to his assistant Thomas Watson in Boston, work on the telephone had begun in 1871, with 1875 being where Bell proved that he could turn electricity into sound, and that's when he developed his telephone receiver. Bell got the patent for his telephone on March 7 1876. And only a few days later, he spoke those words to Watson and the rest they say is history. Bell was born in Scotland, and he came over to America in 1870. And he actually got the idea for the telephone from the way that his father taught speech to the deaf through the vibrations. Funny thing is that only a few hours after Bell had filed his patent, Elijah gray, another inventor actually filed a caveat on it. So he was only a few hours short of actually getting the patent for the telephone. But because Bell was first he got it. Bell demonstrated the phone in May before the Academy of Arts and Science in Boston. Then he tested the telephone, over a two mile distance between Boston and Cambridge in October of 1876. In 1877, he created the Bell Telephone Company, which today is at&t and all of this started 145 years ago this week with that first famous telephone call.
This Week in history 89 years ago, March 7, 1933, Charles Darrow trademarked the game monopoly in Atlantic City, as of 2015 275 million games had been sold. But the irony is I made sure to say he trademarked the game, he did not create the game. The game was created by a woman named Elizabeth Maggie. And it was known as the landlord's game when she patented it in 1904. And for those, I mean, there's no one that's not familiar with monopoly. But it's the game where you buy the properties, you roll the dice, there's Community Chest, there's chance there's the go to jail, the get out of jail free cards that's become part of the lexicon of America sense. And you're basically you're trying to build homes and hotels, and create a monopoly. And all of the names of the places on the board were Atlantic City places. That's why people no boardwalk and Park Place and all of those expensive ones. Although Maggie was the one that created the game, she only received $500 from the trademarking that Darryl gut. So she kind of got the shaft when it comes to this. And she's seen as the creator and Darrow is seen as one of several people that kind of enhance the game as it went along. He contributed to the cartoonish, colorful look of the board, when ironically, he actually used an oil cloth as the board rather than cardboard. And since then, monopoly has gone on to become one of the most famous board games on the planet, up there with life, Trivial Pursuit, clue Scrabble, and others. And this week in history, Charles Gerald trademark the game and really reap the rewards while Elizabeth Maggie got $500 for coming up with monopoly.
And finally, we've got a time capsule. We're going to step back in time and see what was going on back then. So right now we're going to go back to march 10 19 9031 years ago this week, the number one song in America was escapade by Janet Jackson. This was off of her rhythm nation album, and it was a third of seven top five singles from that album. The album has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide Since then, the number one movie was The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin. It's an adaptation of Tom Clancy's book. It made over $200 million on a budget of 30 million, and currently has an 89% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The number one TV show was America's Funniest Home Videos, which was appointment viewing for many years to see foolishness around the country of people falling down and things like that. Today, you can see that on YouTube with something like fail army. It debuted as a special in 1989 and is actually still going today. It was hosted by Bob Saget back in the day from Full House and is today hosted by alfonzo Ribeiro, who was on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And rather than doing the price of gas for this one, I decided to look at what was the cheapest car you could buy in America in the time capsule. So if you went back to march 10 1990, the cheapest car you could get in America was the Hugo gv for a whopping $3,990 and if you don't know where you go, it's just it's deserving of the cheapest car in America moniker. But there you go. There's a time capsule and that caps off another this week in history. Tune in again, Episode 13. For more, go back in time and see what's going on this week.
29:06 - Rocky Point Amusement Park
New England is home to many many really enjoyable amusement parks, Six Flags New England canopy Lake Park, smaller ones like Edaville, Whale's Tale in New Hampshire, Cape Cod there's water Wiz, Aquaboggan in Maine. There's older ones that have come and gone like Riverside. out in western Massachusetts, there was Wonderland amusement park just north of Boston that was just after the turn of the 20th century. But there was one that was kind of the original as far as an amusement park, as you would know it today. It got its start in the years before the American Civil War. And it lasted right up until almost the turn of the 21st century. And that is the Rocky Point amusement park from Warwick Rhode Island. And this is some of its story.
Growing up on Cape Cod even I knew of Rocky Point based on seeing the commercials for it on channel 10 w Jr. from Providence. I never went there, but I definitely knew what it was and where it was. So Warwick Rhode Island is bout to town south of Providence, about an hour and a half from Hartford and an hour south of Boston. So it's pretty centrally located. And Rocky Point existed in one form or another for about 150 years. Rocky Point goes back to 1847. And a man named Captain William Winslow, who owned a small steamship called the Argo. And he would take people out on trips, and he's the one that basically discovered the Rocky Point. Rocky Point is a natural formation. It's not just the name of a park, and he received permission to take people on shore there, and they started having, you know, picnics and things like that, but he decided it would make a great resort area, so he bought a stake in the land in 1847. Winslow bought 89 acres of land from its owners, Mrs. Phoebe Stafford Lyons and Mary Stafford holding for $2400 and within four years of buying it, Winslow's Rocky Point became one of the most popular shore resorts in the state and in southeastern New England. Winslow owned it from 1847 to 1865. And it was a different sort of amusement park. It's not the same as what you would think today. But the big thing that happened during his ownership was in 1860, Stephen A Douglas, who was running for president against Abraham Lincoln came and spoke at the park and 1000s of people came to hear him. And that seems to be a little bit about the initial decades of Rocky Point was that people would gather there as a resort to hear people speak a lot of politicians. Stephen A. Douglas, President Rutherford B. Hayes went there in 1877. after his election, and ironically, Rutherford B Hayes became the first president to make a phone call and he called Alexander Graham Bell from Rocky Point.
Byron Sprague, who was the one that bought the park from Captain Winslow. He bought a $300,000 3-story hotel built on the property and unfortunately in 1883, fire destroyed the Rocky Point hotel. So it was basically the fire that made it where they needed to find a new way to bring people in. This is a hotel had been up for almost two decades, but now it was gone. So this is where the attractions, the rides and such came in. It was after the turn of the 20th century with the burgeoning appeal of Coney Island in New York, that Rocky Point really took off. In 1911, a man named R.A. Harrington purchased the Rocky Point amusement park from the Providence Fall River in Newport Steamship Company. And this purchase was very important because it looked like Rocky Point might just be gone. The hotel had burned down 25-30 years earlier, and it had continued on but there was never as popular as before, and they thought it might be time to shut it down. But thankfully, Harrington bought it and this is where it takes off, where he decides to bring in the new amusements, the rides that started to get popular at the beginning of the 20th century. It was said in these years after the rides were brought in that Rocky Point could fit 75,000 people on the grounds with room to spare. Harrington brought in the Providence Grays baseball team to play on the parks diamond. He brought in vaudeville acts to perform opera stars. There was a shore dinner hall that was built at Rocky Point to house the famous clambakes. And there could be 2500 people sitting to eat at this clambake with people waiting in line to get their turn. That became what they were most famous for. Especially in the first half of the 20th century. Initially, people were being brought to the park by trolley. But the automobile put an end to that.
After the hurricane of 1938. The big one that really did damage to New England, the Rocky Point Park and large the dining hall the 3500 and unfortunately was basically shuttered during most of World War Two. The park continued to do well in the 50s 60s and 70s. But as time went on this, you know, Rocky Point was a throwback by this point to the older parks, and it couldn't compete with the newer ones as Six Flags came around. As Disneyland I mean, granted Disneyland's a lot further to go, but the young people still came for the rides like the flume sky wheel, tilt a-whirl music Express, skydiver, Apollo 11 rhodo jets, the House of Horrors and more. By the early 90s Rocky Point was the second oldest operating park in the United States, behind only late compounds in Bristol, Connecticut. The beginning of the end came on November 7 1994, when the state of Rhode Island suspended Rocky point's permit to sell concessions. After failing to pay back taxes. The permit was reinstated. But again, it happened with the back taxes and Rocky Point filed for bankruptcy and was closed in 1995 and auctioned off all everything in the park on April 16, and 17th 1996.
So Rocky Point was closed. The land though was still there. And on July 29 2003, the land was bought, and people weren't sure what was going to happen to it. But now it is actually a state park. And this is neat. This is where I come in. So I had never gone to Rocky Point when it was open. But I've been to Rocky Point as a state park. I went in 2015. And I can't vouch if all this is still there. But when I went there, there's the famous arch, the archway that's there is still standing that it's got to be 60-70 feet tall. And it's a beautiful view of the water. And there's parts of rides, not necessarily the rides themselves, but the mechanics of the rides are still there. And you can see them It's weird. It's a combination of an old abandoned amusement park. But with the natural beauty, I can't describe it, you'd have to go and see it. I'm thinking I'll do this segment of the podcast for the video on YouTube this week. And I'll throw some of the photos in there so you can see it. The Rocky Point State Park is 120 acres, and it's at one Rocky Point Avenue in Warwick Rhode Island. I definitely recommend checking it out. Just to It's weird. You can't go to the actual amusement park, but you can see some of the stuff that was there. And if you want to learn a little more about Rocky Point amusement park, check out Warwick History.com. The man named Don d'Amato, he's got an awesome really long in depth history of the park. And I use some of that for my research for the podcast. But Did any of you go to Rocky Point, I remember the commercials from the 80s into the early 90s. As we go along, I'll definitely recap some other famous amusement parks from New England. But that was a little trip down memory lane with Rocky Point that Warwick Rhode Island.
37:23 School Film Strips
Just imagine it's middle school. You gotta get up. It's just another day. The day seemed to just run on and drag on. You wake up. You're late for school. You go down, you're rushing. You miss the bus. Then you gotta go ask one of your parents to drive you to school. You're rushing, you get to school, you open your bag. You forgot your homework. There's not enough time to go back and get your homework. You're knowing this is going to be a terrible day. You run into your home room, the bells going off this day is going to be terrible and you look in front of you and what do you see? A film projector or a TV on a cart? You get to watch a TV show or you get to watch a film strip. And the day is suddenly so much better. For all of the hundreds and hundreds of days of school where it was just like every other. You know, you go to learn, obviously, but every now and then there was that day with the T V or the film projector and the screen pulled down. And that's what we're going to talk about today some of the old school educational TV shows and film strips and movies that we got to watch as we go way, way back in the day.
I will admit when doing research for this back in the day segment, it was hard at first the educational TV shows that I remember as a kid, So we're going back to the early to mid 1980's. A few of them came to me really quick, and we'll talk about them in a second. But when it came to film strips and the other TV shows, that was tough. I couldn't remember even the names or what they were like. I can tell you there was stuff that you had to learn and maybe take notes on and maybe take a quiz on. But for the actual names, I had to go and do research. And that's I'm going to share where I got my research from, because you have to see rather than me just telling you the first place that I found the first site that actually helped me out a lot was a blog called the Jennifer Chronicle. So I want to give her a shout. Her sight is Gen X 67.com, because she's a Gen Xer Generation X, and she's got a list that she compiled from people sharing what they remembered. And this was a great jumping off point.
The first one that I want to mention is the Red Balloon. I don't know if any of you remember this. You'd have to see it. It was a French short film from 1956 35 minutes long. I saw it actually twice, once in an actual class and then once in French class. Naturally, the film centers around a young boy who finds a little red balloon that's basically alive, and it follows him around the town around the roads of Paris. If you saw it, you'd probably remember it, but that was the first one I said. I remember that one. Another one I remember just by the title was Donald Duck in Math, Magic Land. That's the one. It's Donald Duck, and he's in a land of all math, multiplication division, all these shapes and things. It was from 1959. It's less than a half hour long. That's another one that if you watch it, you'll remember if you're a kid from my generation or a little before, there's others that I found like red asphalt. These were basically a series of driver's ed videos that were somewhat graphic. There's five parts from the sixties up through 2000 and six was the most recent one that might have been more in high school and kind of the cautioning you about driving recklessly as a kid.
So the Jennifer Chronicles was a great site, but the mother lode was Afana.org a-f-a-n-a. The site is literally films you saw in school URL's. This is a list comprehensive list of all of the titles when they're from who directed them. The only problem is just like me. If you're looking up the films and they don't tell you what your what they're about, it's trial and error. You've got to click on the titles and see what if it's something familiar to you. So it was a lot of trial and error where I'd click on the title, and it's like I don't remember this. I'd watch two minutes and shut it off. Afana.org has about 200 films on it all between 1958 and 1985. I'm still going through some, but as far as memories, one that I remember because I'm from New England was a video just called New England region from 1976 over the bicentennial. And it's about I think, it was 16, 17 minutes long, and it just showcases life in New England. So you get a lot of the seaports and farming some of the city and the history. That was one I remembered but there's so many. There's almost 200 you've almost got to kind of think about maybe when you were in school in a few years after. And that would be kind of the period of when these films would have been relevant to you. Because kids today I don't Obviously I don't think they see filmstrips, but I was in third grade in 1986 so I would expect to see films from that time to about 10 20 years earlier. But go check that site out. It's a lot of fun, especially if you have free time.
But as far as the TV shows go now. Those came real quick. I remember this was especially in elementary school, up through probably fifth grade. We always watched reading Rainbow and I can still hear the theme song the original. I mean, it's the same now, but the original. Take a look. It's in a book Reading Rainbow. LeVar Burton was the host. It started on PBS in July of 1983 and continued until 2009. There were 155 total episodes of Reading Rainbow, and they would discuss books and it got you interested. And I believe at times we may have had to have read one of the books that LeVar Burton would talk about. It would kind of become an assignment, but the books were easy. Their books were for 8-9-10 year old kids. That was a huge one. We're going way back now. I don't know if anyone out there remembers 3-2-1 contact. That's another one. Where the intro It just makes the show. I could remember that the excitement because you're watching this show rather than doing actual schoolwork. 3-2-1 Contact was also on PBS, and it ran original episodes from 1980 to 1988. This show was sort of the evolution of the electric company show that ran through the 1970's, and it actually had a young Sarah Jessica Parker on the show, which I didn't know at the time but found that out researching it. This was a more science and technology based show. There were 225 episodes, and you can find the intro on YouTube easy and some of the episodes as well.
Finding actual film strips were a lot more difficult, I found, actually a couple of film strips that were Sesame Street stuff from the 70's that you can find on YouTube the actual ones where you have to flip the frame. It wasn't a moving picture, but it had sound to it, and you had to hear the beep to know when to flip the frame. And it was fun to come in to school and be able to watch a TV show or a film strip with the lights down. Granted, a lot of the time, some of us kids would end up passing notes or throwing things at each other, but it still was fun to have a break from typical school work days. And as we go along with more back in the day segments, I'll probably dive a little deeper into some of these shows. And as we go along, if I find more educational shows and film strips, there'll probably be a second segment mentioning more. But like I said that Afana.org site has about 200 films on it, and there's not enough time in the day for me to watch each one and see if I remember it. But go to check that site out. Go to the Jennifer Chronicles. She's got a little bit of a shorter list and check some of those out and let me know which ones you remembered. Shoot me a message. Twitter, Facebook email. Christopher Setterlund@gmail.com and let me know what film strips and educational TV shows you remembered from way, way back in the day.
45:34 Closing
And that's gonna do it for Episode 12 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has been listening. I really appreciate it. I hope you've been enjoying the content that I've been putting out. It's a lot of research to make sure that it's things that I think will interest you. And as we go along, I keep adding little bits and pieces of new stuff lifestyle things like that. Because, as I've researched, I've learned that you can't just keep putting out the same stuff. I don't want you to tune in and know exactly the order that everything's gonna be every time. Remember to go check out the videos on YouTube that correspond with the episodes of the podcast. I try to do one per episode. Like I said, Likely it'll be the Rocky Point amusement park for this week so I can show you some of the photos of the parts of the rides that are still there. Go and check out my blog at Blogger.com. It's the in my Footsteps blog. The newest article I put up there was about a man named Charles Hardy, who was the original creator of the iconic Chatham Bars Inn and his fascinating yet tragic story Tune in for my live stream that I do usually Fridays at 5 p.m. On Instagram. Once they're done there, they go up on IGTV and I also end up sharing them to YouTube and then Twitter and my Facebook in my footsteps. Podcast page. Those are a lot more free flowing. They're called without a map, sort of the postgame show for the podcast. So this Friday, I'll likely be talking about a lot of this stuff. Find me on Twitter. Chris Sutherland is my handle on Instagram. I've got two pages, Christopher Setterlund is my personal page with a lot of my photography. With my Canon rebel T7 in my footsteps. Podcast Page has mostly to do with the podcast.
I want to wish my littlest Niece Sylvie a Happy second birthday. It will have passed by the time this podcast goes live, but it was on March 5th to turn two years old. She's a little cuteness monkey. She was one of the ones I said was my MVPs of such a horrible 2020. Remember to always follow your passions. This is coming from something where I've just this past week I've left my current day job as a way to bet on myself. I want to get back into full time personal training while also doing a lot more work on the podcast and my writing. With the new book coming out in May, I said on my livestream this past week that the last three years felt like a necessary detour. But now it's time to get back out on the main road. It was like I was driving down the highway, but I had to stop and get gas. And when I got gas, I got lost on the back roads for a few years, and now I found my way back out to the highway. So just remember whatever you're passionate about your dreams, even if you get sidetracked, don't forget them. You've only got so many years that you can chase your dreams. There's plenty of time in life to settle for something that's just mundane. You've only got so many kicks at the can to chase your dreams. That's all I'm saying. I'm taking another crack at it.
Tune in next week for Episode 13, where we will look back at the story of author Henry Beston and his outermost house out near Coast Guard Beach in Eastham. We're going to take a road trip to the capital of Connecticut, Hartford. We're going to go way, way back in the day to Chuck E. Cheese, where a kid can be a kid and we're going to go more this week in history with my oldest time capsule so far. So that'll be fun. Thank you again to everyone for listening. Go and check out Wear your Wishes.com for Katie Marks new clothing and apparel company. Wear Your wish. Find the podcast anywhere you get your podcast. ITunes, Pandora, Amazon, Spotify. And if you have any questions, comments, suggestions shoot me an email, Christopher Setterlund@gmail.com. But remember, in this journey, walking no one else's footsteps, create your own path and enjoy every moment that you can, because you only get one life, make it count, make it great, make your story one worth listening to. So take care and I'll talk to you all again soon.