Episode 15: Celebrating My Nina's Life; Road Trip to Block Island; The Day Grunge Music Died; This Week In History(TV Is Unveiled) (4-8-2021)

Episode 15 is a very bittersweet one.  I am sad yet proud to share a celebration of life for my Nina, Rosemarie Sullivan, who passed March 23.  It is a reflection of the amazing person she was, with some funny moments as well.  It is meant to bring back good memories of loved ones for anyone who has lost those who meant so much.
We take a Road Trip to one of New England's most spectacular islands.  Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island might only be 1/4 the size of Nantucket but it has so much to offer visitors.
On April 8, 1994 Kurt Cobain was found dead.  Though not the only superstar to come from Grunge music he was christened by many as the voice of a generation.  What happened to Grunge when he was gone?  What is the legacy of Nirvana today? I share my memories of where I was that day.
This Week In History includes the unveiling of television for a group of stunned reporters, a change in fight plans for Rocky Marciano, and more including a Time Capsule coinciding with the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death.
You can also catch new episode of the podcast on Lemonadio.com radio, Saturday's at 3pm! Link below.
Also be sure to check out my new livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm 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

• Block Island Info
• Wear Your Wish
• Lemonadio.com
• DJ Williams Music
• TrackTribe
• Christopher Setterlund's YouTube Channel
• In My Footsteps Blog
• Christopher Setterlund.com

Listen to Episode 14 here.

Transcript

00:00 Intro

Hello world! Welcome to episode 15 of the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund coming to you from the vacation destination known as. Cape Cod, Massachusetts. So how is everybody doing out there? It's been two weeks since episode 14. How have you enjoyed the first few weeks of spring? Typical on Cape Cod. We get mostly days that are in the upper 40's that are foggy and drizzly. We always have the joke. There's not a real spring on Cape Cod. It just goes from winter to summer. 

Thank you so much to everyone who has tuned in to any previous episode. Who has tuned into any of my, without a map live streams that I do on Instagram Fridays, usually at 8:00 PM. We'll see, that might change. I always give a heads up before I do them. I really appreciate it though. I'm constantly looking for feedback on the podcast, on my live streams and videos on YouTube, et cetera. It's definitely been a difficult last month I would say. My grandmother, my last remaining Grandparent, my Nina she passed away on March 23rd at the age of 92, it's a blessing and a curse for the last year and a half almost. She was kind of trending downward slowly, like watching the tide go out, but also it's selfish. You know, you want your family, your loved ones to be around forever. And so it's hard to kind of put those two together. It's like they're waves that are just crashing against each other. But in this episode, I'm going to have a segment dedicated to my Nina. And dedicated, not just to her, but to grief and losing a loved one in general, because that's a way that all of us are connected through our connection to our fans, families, and loved ones and losing loved ones.
 
 Don't worry. It's going to be more of a celebration of life because I want it to be a celebration of her life rather than something that's depressing. Another sort of funny pulling back the curtain thing, as far as behind the scenes. So when this comes out, it will be April 15th is the release date for episode 15 here, this podcast, April 1st, April fool's day was my 200th day of not drinking. It's kind of funny that 200 days was April fool's day because I never intended for it to go this far. It was just, I needed a break, but I have just found that life is. A lot easier for me, myself without drinking. And in a future episode, I'm going to touch on kind of why I stopped drinking to kind of shed some light on it.
 
 But this is going to be a great episode of the podcast. I'm dipping my toe more into the lifestyle topics. As far as podcasts go, I've been doing research as to what exactly constitutes lifestyle topics in a podcast and a blog. And I found that things like travel that I do a lot of in this podcast, that's considered lifestyle so I'm kind of already there. And hopefully it brings more eyes and ears to the podcast. You guys have done a great job sharing it. I really appreciate it, but it's always time to grow and evolve. So this week's episode, like I said, we're going to have a special celebration of life for my Nina. I'm going to touch on a lot of stuff with her having Grandparents in general, it's going to be good.
 
 That's going to be what kicks it off. But then we're going to take a trip to Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island, which is it's an amazing place and you all should go visit it. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at the legacy of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. As the 27th anniversary of his death passed last week and I remember where I was, I don't know if you remember where you were, but I'm going to go over that. And we've got this week in history, including Halley's comet coming close to earth and the monumental TV broadcast, the first demonstration of TV, all that, time capsule, so much more. Thank you all so much for tuning in. This is the, in my footsteps podcast, episode 15. Let's get going. I'm Christopher Setterlund and I'm here to take you on a little hike through my mind. So let's go and take a walk.

04:40 Celebrating My Nina's Life

Family. And the love of our family is a way that everybody is kind of connected. No matter what your beliefs, your background anything like that, we're all connected in the way that we have a family that we love. And we also deal with the loss. You know, it goes way, way deeper than the surface stuff. Me, myself. I I've been lucky in a way that I haven't dealt with as much loss as some others have my Grampa Johnny, on my father's side, he passed away young. He was 43 when he died suddenly in 1965. But when I was born, I had three Grandparents that were still with me in 1977, and I had all three of those until 2009. When my Nana passed away on my dad's side. So I had 32 years where I really didn't experience any sort of loss and that's a blessing and a curse because you go through all that time.
 
 And even though, you know, you've seen other people lose family members, you start thinking, wow, not maybe it won't happen to me, but you're not prepared for it because you haven't dealt with it. Then you start dealing with it later in life. And you know that eventually these losses come and they're going to pile up and that's kind of what it's felt like the last 11, 12 years now, the only solace you get from losing family later on in life is that you've had a chance to build a lot of memories.
 
 And so you have those to fall back on. I was lucky that I have thousands of memories of all of my Grandparents. So even though they're gone now, I still have those. It's funny because thinking about it, I don't know if it'd be better or worse. If I had lost my Grandparents as a little kid and just not having those memories, but then also not having the attachment to them, not feeling that loss as much, I guess, because you just didn't have the time with them.
 
 For me, it's like, great-Grandparents. I had great Grandparents that passed before I was 10 years old. And I don't feel that attachment to them because there were very few memories I have of them, but my Nina Rosemary Sullivan passed away. I said, March 23rd at the age of 92, she had been trending downward once my grandfather died in may of 2019, they had been married 73 years. She met him when she was 15. I was 15. I was a freshman in high school. So I couldn't imagine being with the same person from freshman year of high school until I was about 90 years old, that just doesn't happen these days. And whereas my Grampa, his mind went because of Alzheimer's at the end, but his body stayed, with my Nina it was her body that went, but her mind stayed right up until the end. They really were a perfect match. And with my Nina and Grampa, it was sad and it was tough to see them at the end like that, but it was something that I owed to them for all of the decades of great memories and great times with them that I owed them being there at the end.
 
 But that being said, I do not want to remember those last several months with my Nina or especially with my Grampa. I'd rather now focus on the good times. And that's what I want to do here with my Nina. I said I was going to make this a celebration of life and that's what I'm going to do. So the first thing we got to do when I think of my Nina and Grampa, I think, of one thing to start and that's as music. So I wanted to have this as a little bit of background noise for a little bit of this. I can remember my Nina coming to take me and my sister Kate out for. Sunday, shopping and lunch in her Oldsmobile tornado, it was kind of like a Cadillac, but not, and this song was perfect because it's got the beat. I can see in my head, my Nina playing the steering wheel with her long fingernails and kind of tapping to the drum beat.
 
 So that's why I chose this to play in the background. And those drives, we would take route 6A on Cape Cod is like our big historic road. There are just dozens and dozens of homes that are. From 250 years ago lining the street when we would go through Yarmouth port. And I can remember my Nina's telling me to look out for tiger lilies because she was allergic to them and she'd need to roll the windows up when she went past them.
 
 So the irony is that now tiger lilies. Remind me of my Nina. And, you know, Grandparents spoil their grandkids. So Nina, she would spoil us by us toys at KB toy store in the Cape Cod mall. Take us to Friendly's. She'd have these games, these water games on her deck at the house where they lived for 20 years and I was researching them so I could tell you guys about what they really were and. I've been finding, I think they were called waterfuls. If you go on Amazon, these games that you'd fill with water and it was you push a button and the air would push these little balls and they would go into the little hoops, basically. That's what they had a bunch of them on the deck and we'd sit out there in the sun and play these games. And my Nina had a bunch of cats and the little terriers, the Scottie dogs. At one point, she had three of the white ones. It was Tina, Jimmy and Nicki. Jimmy would shake. Like he was just afraid of people. It was almost like he was a robot dog that you put on vibrate.

Being an Italian grandmother my Nina always wanted us to eat. There's so many old pictures of us eating in the dining room there. I remember the anisette toast, Stella Doro. I actually went and bought some. I hadn't had that probably since I was a kid. Just to have those memories back, you've got photos. You've got the foods you remember that can bring back the memory. So it's like someone's gone, but they're not gone. That was kind of a coping mechanism right after my Nina died, me, my siblings, some of my cousins, it was like a parade of old photos. We were sharing with each other. To kind of go back and bathe ourselves in those feelings. But my Nina, she was the glue of the family.
 
 My Grampa was this larger than life, character, and he's going to get an episode of the podcast coming up later on. But while he was out running the doughnut shop that he owned in Hyannis and just being like the mayor, everyone knew. Sully and a jazz singer. Nina was the one that held the family together to allow him to go and do that.
 
 That's what made them a perfect pair, but she was hardly a housewife. I mean, she was at the forefront of the women's fitness revolution, late 60's, early 70's. You've got to go and look up Gloria Stevens it was kind of a franchise that started it. There was Curves came later, but my Nina Rosemarie, she was the head of the Gloria Stevens the first one on Cape Cod in Hyannis. She was this little Italian lady, but she was just fire and toughness and class and when I was a kid, she always reminded me of Tina Turner. I don't know why. I mean, maybe it was, she liked the high heels. Maybe it was just, he had the strong legs. Maybe it was that she had the kind of not poofy hair, but that sort of hair like that.
 
 That's what I always thought of was my Nina was like Tina Turner. And even in the later years, even at the end, the last few months, she didn't lose that fire. I remember we were doing Zoom calls a couple times a week and I was on there with one with my aunt Kelly. I'm not sure if it was my sister Lindsay or not, but we were getting near the end of the allotted time and all I remember, my Nina just said, Kelly. And she just said, what? And she slowly lifted two middle fingers up to her. And my aunt was like, what did I do? And I just thought that was just the funniest thing. Then it was near the end. We were about to sign off. And my Nina just said, this was a lovely visit.
 
 And that kind of was fitting. That was just who she was. She loved her family. She was very proud of her family. Even the times that I didn't feel that I was doing enough with my life. She was always proud of me and thought I was great. Yeah, it might be Grandparents just saying that, but it would help me through times when I had a crisis of confidence, I would say, you know, my Nina and Grampa think I'm great, so I must be doing something right.
 
 And I think that's the same for anyone with their family. The family's confidence and love for them can sometimes help them through tough times. I remember one of her favorite stories to tell me, cause I don't remember because I think I was three years old at the time was a time that the family, a bunch of us went to a Chinese restaurant and they brought us fortune cookies at the end of the meal, and someone opened their fortune cookie and a cockroach came out and started scurrying across the table. And I started screaming, Nina, look at the bug, look at the bug. Everyone turned and looked and Nina's trying to get me to be quiet, but I'm three years old and I'm seeing this thing out on the table and the waiter at the Chinese restaurant came running over. No, no, no, no bug, no bug. And it's just, she tells that story was such, such joy and laughter. It's weird to talk about my Nina in the past tense now and all my Grandparents in the past tense, it's like tying a bow on a chapter of my life that lasted a lot longer than a lot of people get.
 
 I don't know about you, like when you lost your last Grandparent, but for me to be 43 years old and to say, I just lost my Nina and my last Grandparent, that's something. I think a lot of people don't get a lot of people lose their Grandparents young. A lot of them lose them before they're born. A lot of people deal with a lot more family tragedy and loss than I have dealt with and growing up, I don't know if I appreciated it as much as I do now how blessed I was to have a large family, but to have them all and to have most of them still around is a blessing that I don't think I appreciated in my teens and twenties, but I definitely do. Now as other people, as friends start to lose parents. Now I've got friends of mine that have lost their parents recently.
 
 So when all is said and done, I'm very lucky and blessed to have who I have. And that's the one thing I'm trying to share these stories and memories of my Nina, but also trying to tell folks, and you know it to enjoy who you have when you have them, because once they're gone, that's it. Then all you've got is things like this sharing memories on a podcast.
 
 Sure eventually it's going to be like that for everyone or all you're going to have left as the memories, but you make as many as you can when you can and make the time for them when you can. I was lucky that even when they were in their 80's, I was over there to see my Grandparents, as often as I could just hanging out with them, just chatting and my Nina, you know, late 80's.
 
 And she's still like, we need to make you something to eat. And I'm just like, no, all I want to do is spend time with you, but she wouldn't hear that. Even in her later years, she was still that same fiery, tough Italian grandmother that I remember as a child, I guess I kind of always felt like a kid still, as long as I had a Grandparents still alive, if that makes sense.
 
 When you're a kid, it seems like all the time, all you want to do is be old enough to do what you want and to grow up. And now here I am looking back so fondly on those days when I was a kid, when everything was kind of laid out for you, not that you could do whatever you wanted, but you had no responsibilities. You didn't have to worry about work. I mean, you had school, but whatever, and you could go do sleep overs. You could go visit your Grandparents. The holidays were taken care of everyone bought you stuff. You didn't have to worry about getting gifts for others and feeling bad if you didn't. I mean, my Nina had a bookshelf full of old VHS tapes that I would watch when I was there.
 
 And she had Godzilla movies. She has three Stooges videos. There's no way my Nina watched those. She got them for me. That's the thing that about Grandparents, about family like that. When they go out of their way to do stuff, to make you feel good, you feel comfortable and special. That's the kind of thing that I want to end with.
 
 And it's all right to feel bad, even though my Nina was 92 and she's definitely in a better place with my Grampa. Now, I can still feel selfish and sad and wish that they all were still here. But my Nina was a special lady and that's apparent to everyone that knew her and especially the family that loved her and was there with her through so many years.
 
 I love you, Nina. And I'll definitely see you again in a far better place than this. And I appreciate all of you listening to a little bit of my celebration of life, of my Nina, and I hope it brought back good memories for you, of whoever you've lost in your life and your family. Cause that's what I wanted this to be. We're all connected in that way. We've all lost, loved ones and the people are never gone. As long as we hold those memories, dear to us.

17:49 Road Trip Block Island, RI
 
It's road trip time again, this is the part of the podcast where we do a little exploring of one of the hundreds and hundreds of amazing places that the new England region has to offer. I love these because Cape Cod is my home, but I also know that the new England region in itself is so rich with history and so much to see.
 
So it's great to get to pick and choose, go through and say, Ooh, I bet the listeners would like this city or this town or this area. And this week is no different this week. We're going to do a little exploring of one of the premier islands in all of new England. And that is block Island located off the South coast of Rhode Island.
 
And when it comes to islands in new England, there are thousands of islands. Maine alone has more than 4,600 islands. Now granted, a lot of these islands. Are tiny when it comes to major islands, you think of Nantucket Martha's vineyard, Desert Island in Maine, but block Island is right up there. It's different than a lot of the places.
 
Block Island itself is 12 miles South of Narragansett, Rhode Island. It's seven miles long and three miles wide at its widest and block Island is it's basically shaped like a pork chop and it's 7,000 acres in size. Now that may seem like it's a large Island, but just for comparison, Nantucket is 30,000 acres.
 
So it's less than a quarter of the size of Nantucket. It's small, but it's big I guess. When it was first settled, it was settled by the Narragansett tribe of native Americans. And it was settled in 1661 by Europeans. It got the name block Island in 1614 by Dutch Explorer, Adrian block, who, I guess when you discover an Island, you can give it your name if you want so that's what he did. The nature Conservancy has designated block Island is one of the 12 last great places in the Western hemisphere. And if you've ever seen photos of it, it's incredible. It's like a whole it's its own little world. It can be totally self-sufficient. It basically has one of everything. One gas station, one bank, one school, and one town, which is the town of New Shoreham. The population of the Island year round in general, as of 2019 was 916 people. But as with many of these places, there's summer destinations and block Island's population can swell to as much as 20,000 on a busy day. So, you know, if a lot of people go over there and stay at all the hotels, it can get up to as high as 20,000 people on an Island that's 7,000 acres. So that's pretty crowded and it's an Island. 

So you can't drive to it. The two choices you have to get over there. You can either fly to the block Island, state airport, which is kind of small. It would be probably similar to the Barnstable Hyannis airport on Cape Cod. For those of you that are down here, I don't know too many other small airports in new England, but that's what I think it would look like.
 
 Or the most popular is the block Island ferry. You can get there from point Judith, which is Narragansett, Newport, or fall river. So fall river, the fast ferry is two hours. The other two are shorter times, and if you're plotting it out, a round trip ticket from fall river to block Island is $60 and it's $12 for a bike. That would be my choice when I've gone to Nantucket or Martha's vineyard, I've taken my bike. It's just a lot easier than a car. It's so expensive to take a car on a ferry. It's unbelievable how much, but I get it. So what is there to do once you get to block Island, or if you're looking for food, you can eat at Kimberly's, which is a seafood restaurant.
 
 It's kind of new. It was established in 2014, at 238 ocean Avenue, even though it's new, it's filled with an experienced staff and has gotten rave reviews in such a short time. So that would be a great place to start. You can visit Kimberly's block island.com for more information about their hours and such because COVID is obviously not done so hours aren't as they would be in a normal situation.
 
 As I said before, bringing a bike over there is really a great way to go seeing that it's seven miles by three miles, and there's a great website, block Island info.com. They have everything you could possibly want to know about the Island. And they've got this great bike trail loop with the full loop being about 16 miles.
 
 And you get to go from top to bottom with the Island and see all of the attractions that you could possibly want to see. So for outdoing, that bike ride, what do you see? Well, down in the Southeast corner, there's Mohegan Bluffs in some places they're as high as 150 foot high clay cliffs. If you've ever been to Martha's vineyard and you've gone to the Western coast in Aquinnah the gay head cliffs, it's similar to that.
 
 The views are incredible. It got the name Mohegan Bluffs because of a battle in the mid 16th century between the Niantic and the Mohegan tribes of native Americans. And as many of, you know, if you've listened to some of these episodes of the podcast, you know, what a big fan of lighthouses I am and block Island has to, if you're down by Mohegan Bluffs, their Southeast lighthouse.
 
 And obviously then at the top of the Island, there's North lighthouse, which is actually the fourth one built on the site. Southeast lighthouses is really neat. Red brick. It's similar to gay head light house on Martha's vineyard. It's kind of interesting that that area of Martha's vineyard and block Island are so similar.
 
 North lighthouse is a little different it's wood and granite. And it basically, it's a little, it's like a lantern sticking out of the top of a keeper's house. It looks almost like a submarine Periscope, not quite, but it's like it's coming out of the roof. If you're looking to get around, if you go over there on the ferry without a bike. You don't have to, they have taxis, but if you're looking to rent a bike, the old Harbor bike shop is one of the best on the Island. And I was looking up prices just to share with you a four hour bike rental is $20. A four hour moped rental is $90. So that'll give you kind of an example. They're located at 1 water street in new Shoreham. Or you can go visit their website block Island, moped.com either way. If you bring a bike, if you don't, there's always solutions. You can definitely do block Island as a day trip, but it might be a little easier to stay. So if you stay there, there's hotel Manisses 251 spring street in new shoreham or hotel Manisses.com.
 
 There's also the 1661 in named for the year that the Island was first settled. That's at 5 spring street in new Shoreham. It's also at blockislandresorts.com and that might be nice to go and spend the night there to get a sunrise and a sunset on block Island, 12 miles away from the coast of Rhode Island.
 
 It's far enough that you really can't see it, but it's not like Nantucket is 30 miles from the coast of Cape Cod. So you really feel like you're in the middle of the ocean when you're there. And if you're looking to get to block Island from Western new England, obviously Narragansett will be the closest ferry port for you to take the block Island ferry.
 
 It's about a three and a half hour drive from New York city and an hour and a half drive from Boston to kind of give you an idea of how long it would take you to get to Narragansett. Then you've got to take the ferry, keep that in mind. It's not that you're driving to this place. You've got to drive to a place to take the ferry.
 
 As I said before, visit block Island info.com. They've got everything you could possibly want to know a lot more in depth than what I'm sharing with you here for the podcast. Also visit block Island chamber.com. They'll give you a lot of information, too nuts and bolts. Anytime is a good time to go and visit block Island.
 
 These islands around new England, Martha's vineyard, Nantucket, desert Island in Maine. They're just an escape. And you're not that far away. If that makes any sense. I always think of that when I go to the vineyard or Nantucket, I definitely plan on going to block Island sometime in the summer. It's just, you've got to plot out the time.
 
 If I got to drive to fall river and then take the two hour ferry over there. So it's a long trip, but yet it's not that far away, but let me know if you've ever been to block Island. What did you think of it? How was it getting around on a bike? If you went or driving, do you plan? If you go, let me know what you thought of it.
 
 But I'll be back next time for another road trip, we explore more and more places all around new England and probably a little beyond once I started doing the road trip that I did in 2019, I plan on starting to share some of those places to branching out. That's the way we're doing it, but I'll be back again for another road trip. Stay tuned.

27:05 The Day Grunge Music Died
 
Everyone's got those moments in life, where they remember where they were when something happened and how they felt when something happened 27 years ago, this week, April 8th, 1994 was one of those for me. Anyone who's listened to this podcast, the first. 14 episodes, you know, all about my love of grunge music and how that I feel defined who I was as a person growing up teenager, especially.
 
And at the forefront of that grunge movement was the band Nirvana it's lead singer, Kurt Cobain, who, whether he liked it or not basically became a spokesperson for generation X, my generation. And I'm sure, especially now over two decades later, people know Kurt Cobain never wanted to be the face of grunge or the voice of a generation, but he kind of had no choice, his words, his life, it spoke to people like me.
 
When I came home from school, sophomore year of high school on that day. It was a Friday. It was the end of a school week. It was spring. Everything was great. I came home, dropped my backpack down, went out into our TV room. We had this little TV room, which was, we always used to call it the dog room because our two dogs would kind of live out in that room.
 
But I turned on the TV and I put MTV on. And there on the screen was Kurt Loder, who did the MTV news. And he was talking about a body being found above the garage at Kurt Cobain's home in Seattle, Washington. And I still remember at that point, I don't think he had been identified yet, but it was one of those sinking feelings. Like you knew. That the body that was found up there, it wasn't some stranger, it was Kurt Cobain was dead. And then it was just kind of that numb feeling because Nirvana and the music, it spoke to me. And now here was the lead singer, the man who was behind it all was now no more. And for that, those of the older generation, I guess it would liken to either when John Lennon got shot, I was three years old when that happened. When Lennon got shot in 1980, Or you go back even further to the day the music died, which was in February, 1959 when Ritchie Valens, buddy Holly, and the big bopper died in the plane crash. Those, I guess they're kind of other Seminole moments of shock in the music industry. I mean, there were other musician deaths, you know, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Tupac Shakur, notorious BIG. People like that, where the world kind of is shocked.

For me when Kurt Cobain, he was dead and by suicide, it's like, wait, how can you be that unhappy? You've got all this money and fame and you're the voice of a generation, but you don't know what goes on inside a person. And only, you know, the years coming out after reading all the books and the stories about his addiction to heroin and that crippling stomach issue he had, then it became more plausible as to why he would end his own life.
 
 Then it was just listening to all the music again, like I always listened to Nirvana. I wore out my, my nevermind CD. That I bought in September or October of 1991. I still have that thing now. And it's got the CD rot on it because I played it so much and it was just listening to the music again and trying to feel it again.
 
 And I didn't know it at the time, but the end of Kurt Cobain's life basically spelled the end of grunge music as it was Nirvana. Wasn't the only grunge band or that grunge alternative sound. I mean, Pearl jam was just as big and you had Soundgarden and Alice In chains and smashing pumpkins and stone, temple pilots.
 
 And all of these bands were still around, but the identity, the heart and soul of grunge was gone. And it's crazy because if you go back and look at the music of 1994 after the end of Nirvana, basically, cause they disbanded. I mean, what are they going to do? Replace Kurt Cobain? But all these bands in that grunge alternative genre had these massive sales, like Soundgarden superunknown. You had live that came out with throwing copper. You had Bush that came out with 16 stone, Pearl jam had Vitalogy. And obviously Nirvana's unplugged in New York, came out a little later in the year, but all of the grunge music, it was like people were grabbing onto another one. Like, God, there's gotta be something else. You know, Kurt Cobain is gone, but there's gotta be other bands. So there was a spike in alternative music sales, but after 94 it kind of fell off. And the bands that were left all started either disbanding or not changing their sound, but adapting to be more rock than grunge. Just look at Pearl jam. After Kurt Cobain died, look at what happened to Pearl Jam's music mainstream found grunge.
 
 And so after Kurt Cobain died, I mean, Pearl jam went away from mainstream. Again, they had three or four albums that I, as a fan really liked, but they were so not mainstream. And it was like, they were trying to get away from that because they were looking like, look what happened to Kurt Cobain from the pressures of success, smashing pumpkins would break up.
 
 Alice In Chains would break up. Scott Weiland went to jail for drugs. So stone temple pilots was kind of on a breakup Soundgarden eventually broke up with Chris Cornell, going to form audioslave with the members of rage against the machine. This was the jumping off point, April 8th, 1994. Now granted Kurt Cobain had actually died a few days before.
 
 It just took a few days for his body to be found. It's seen as the end of grunge alternative. It was just a slow decline. Amazingly from the ashes of Nirvana came foo fighters. Dave Grohl, the drummer, honestly, when they announced that he was going to have an album, a band foo fighters led by him. I said, wait, he's the drummer he's not a front man. And then you listen to that first foo fighters album. And it's like the last bastion of grunge music, because it was all the stuff that Dave girl had written in the time he was with Nirvana. And around that time. So it had that same feel. And he performed the whole album by himself, all the instruments. It's wild. If you've never listened to the first foo fighters album before they became more of a polished rock band, you've got to listen to it. And they're up for the rock and roll hall of fame now. And here it was, I thought it was like, what is this? The drummer is doing a side project. And Dave Grohl is like the last real rock God out there.
 
 Kurt Cobain's now been dead longer than he was alive, which just blows my mind because the day he died is so fresh in my head. And I see kids that are teenagers and early twenties that never would have heard the music when it was around. They are wearing the Nirvana shirts with the smiley face, with the X eyes. It's interesting because I think of it as how my parents must've seen people, my age wearing Beatles shirts. Like you weren't around for the Beatles. Why, what are you doing wearing that? But it's respect. And it's the legacy that these bands leave behind. And that's it Nirvana's legacy grows more year by year because their catalog is so small. It's all been exhausted. There's no secret album or secret songs coming out that happened in 2002 when the song, you know you're right, which was from their last real recording session. I think it was January of 94. When that came out. That was kind of the end, that legacy though. 

Nirvana is now they're not the same as bands like the Beatles. I don't want to mistake it, but for my generation, that's how they're seen. I liken it to Nirvana being like the Beatles and Pearl jam being like the rolling stones. The Beatles just were a supernova that lasted a short time and the rolling stones have gone strong for 50 years. And Pearl jam is still around. They're the last real band from that era still around. I mean, Smashing pumpkins is trying to make it come back, but it's not the full original band. It's hard to believe that it's been 27 years since Kurt Cobain committed suicide. And basically. Put the stake in the heart of the grunge music movement, but I can still close my eyes and go back to being 16 years old, coming home from school that day and seeing it on TV and just being in shock that this person that spoke to me.
 
 And as far as the teenage angst, that he was just gone. Are any of you out there? Remember the day that Kurt Cobain was found dead, do you have another band or artist like a similar story as far as being shocked at their passing, but it just makes all the music mean more. That's a little bit of my story of where I was, what I thought when I first heard and what I think Nirvana's legacy and Kurt Cobain's legacy is 27 years this week after Nirvana was ended with a shotgun blast above the garage at Kurt Cobain's home in Seattle.

36:23 Sponsor Wear Your Wish
 
I Just want to 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 28th.
 
And Wear your wish is open for business, clothing and apparel. Go to there now and enter your email on the site Wear your wishes.com 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 have 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 and 11 cents. There's so much stuff 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 to just go check it out. It's going to be big 2021 is going to be big Wear your wish at Wear Your Wishes.com.

38:11 This Week In History
 
It's that time of the podcast. It's time for this week in history, where we take a look back at all the fun, important and unusual events that went on this week in the past, I try to keep them very interesting. So let's dive right in this week in history, 68 years ago, April 10th, 1953. The proposed second Rocky Marciano versus Jersey Joe Walcott boxing championship match was supposed to take place, but it ends up getting postponed. Marciano was the heavyweight champion of the world and native of Brockton, Massachusetts, and for shameless self promotion. One of my grandfather's closest friends growing up, he won the heavyweight championship on September 23rd, 1952. From Jersey, Joe Walcott at municipal stadium in Philadelphia, that was considered an all time classic.
 
The second fight, not so much. It was scheduled for April the 10th, as I said, and the hype, it was all ready to go. And then on April 2nd, Marciano broke his nose in a sparring session and it had to get postponed that second fight would get postponed to May 15th, 1953. And it ended controversially in the first round with a heavily disputed knockout where Marciano knocked Walcott down.
 
He sat up and put his glove on the second rope. And as the referee counted, Walcott seemed to be alert, but he popped up a split second. After the count of 10, there are a lot of stories as to why the fight ended the way it did from unsubstantiated rumors that the mob had put the fix in for Walcott to lose that Walcott just lost track of the count and meant a pop-up after the count of nine, but who knows. This week in history, April 10th, the original fight date got pushed back. 

This week in history, April 10th, 1872. The very first Arbor day is celebrated 149 years ago. Although it is now considered the last Friday of the month of April. The first Arbor day occurred April 10th, 1872 in Nebraska city, Nebraska and it's estimated that nearly a million trees were planted on this day. Arbor day came from the mind of a tree lover named Julius Sterling Morton, who had a passion for planting all kinds of trees. And that's Arbor day is a celebration of trees. By 1885 Arbor day had become a legal holiday in Nebraska. Within 20 years of the first Arbor day, it was celebrated in every American state except for Delaware, but they eventually joined in. Julius Sterling Morton didn't just preach the Arbor day and tree loving idea. When he and his wife got married in October, 1854. They settled on 160 acres that were treeless barren acres of land and over time, Morton planted thousands of trees on the homestead, and he took every opportunity He could to spread the word of Arbor day and his love of trees and their value to the world gave speeches and newspaper articles with agricultural advice. It's really for people who have a love of nature. In 2019, the Arbor day foundation launched an initiative called time for trees. And it's a plan to plant 100 million trees in forests and communities worldwide by 2022, which will be the a hundred and 50th anniversary of the first Arbor day. But this week in history, the first Arbor day occurred in Nebraska city, Nebraska Thanks to Julius Sterling Morton. 

This week in history, April 10th, 1986, 35 years ago. Halley's comment makes it's close passing to the earth. Halley's comet is arguably the most famous comet. There is. It returns to the area near earth, every 75 years. So the next time is projected to pass by the earth will be in 2061. The comet itself is named after English, astronomer, Edmund Halley, who examined the reports of a comet approaching earth in the years, 1531 1607 and 1682. And he concluded that these three comets were the same one that kept returning and he predicted the comet would come back again in 1758, although he did not live to see that actual occurrence. The comet's return in 1986 was special because several spacecraft could approach the vicinity to sample the composition of the comet and high powered telescopes from the earth were allowing scientists and astronomers to study it close up. And when I say study at close up, when Halley's comet came close to earth in 1986, it was still 39 million miles away so it wasn't that close, but it was close enough to be studied. 

One of the most fascinating stories about Halley's comet is the story of Mark Twain, the literary giant, and his connection to it. Where Twain was born in 1835, the year that the comet passed near the earth. And he basically predicted that he was going to die wen the comet came back in 1909, he said, I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It is coming again next year. And I expect to go out with it. And Mark Twain died April 21st, 1910, one day after the comet emerged from the far side of the sun, it is predicted when Halley's comet comes back around in 2061 to come, it will be on the same side of the sun as the earth, and therefore will be much brighter and easier to see than in 1986. So get ready for that. I'll be 83 years old when it comes back around. But this week in history, 35 years ago was the last time that Halley's comet made its appearance close to earth. 

And this week in history, 94 years ago, April 7th, 1927, there was the first public display of a television broadcast. The bell telephone company known today as AT&T held the first public demonstration of long distance television transmission. As newspaper reporters watched as a TV image of secretary of commerce. Herbert Hoover was sent from Washington DC to New York city. By phone lines. Those reporters from the United press wire service were fascinated and stunned in amazement at seeing these moving pictures with voice in real time.
 
 They said the eye, as well as the voice now can be flung through space so that human beings miles apart can converse and see each other as though they were face-to-face. We take these things kind of for granted now in the 2020s, but can you just imagine in 1927, that was less than a decade after radio came out and you know, within 30, 35 years of when motion pictures were first created.
 
 So this is all brand new, crazy technology that was just coming one after another. And although this was a really big deal in 1927, when it occurred, it was another 20 years, basically until after world war two. When television started to become more readily available, especially in people's homes, it was estimated by 1949 that only 6,000 households in the United States had a television set that went up to 52 million by 1960. So you can see where the jump really occurred. But this week in history in 1927, a group of newspaper reporters got to watch. The first public display of television, featuring future president, Herbert Hoover. 

And finally it is time for another time capsule where we dig up, what was going on in the world at a certain date in history this week. So this time I chose April 8th, 1994, which goes along with the death of Kurt Cobain in the segment that I mentioned earlier, the number one song in America was Bump n' grind by R Kelly. It was his second single of his album 12 play, which was his debut album and would go on to sell more than 6 million copies in the United States.
 
 The number one movie was D2 to the mighty ducks. It started Emilio Estevez as the coach of his mighty ducks, teen misfit junior hockey team. Kind of in the same vein as the bad news bears. And ironically, the mighty ducks became an actual real team when Anaheim introduced them as an expansion NHL hockey team, that movie made just over $45 million at the box office in America and currently has a 20% positive rating on rotten tomatoes. But you be the judge, whether you like it or not. The number one TV show was home improvement, starring Tim Allen, it narrowly beat out Seinfeld. Tim Allen was Tim, the tool man Taylor and the show was a huge hit throughout the 1990s. It ran for eight seasons and 204 episodes.

 And if you're doing some shopping back April 8th, 1994, and you were looking to get a laptop computer. These things are so commonplace today, but back then the IBM ThinkPad seven 55 CD, which was the first laptop with a CD rom drive. It would only cost you $7,599. Adjusted for inflation. That's about $13,500 for a laptop. Think about you out there listening to this that have a laptop. What did you pay for yours? Mine, I think was $600 for an HP. So just imagine that I could end up buying like two dozen laptops for the price that it costs to get that one back in 1994, but it was the big, big cutting edge. And that'll do it for another time capsule another episode of this week in history, I'll be back next time for some more fun as we check out what was going on in this crazy world, back in the day.
 
48:52 Closing 

 And that's going to wrap up episode 15 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has tuned in all of you that have been listening and sharing, giving me your feedback. I really appreciate it. This is a project that I'm really passionate about combined with all of my content that I do. YouTube, you can go subscribe over there for my 4k new England videos. The newest one on Fort Revere just went up. I've also got my blog at blogger.com. It's also called in my footsteps. I just put up an article about the cannibalism that happened on Boon Island in Maine. That's going to be a subject on a podcast in the future, but it's amazing. It's a shipwreck from 300 years ago. You've really got to go read it or you can wait for me to share it on the podcast because I definitely will. 

Go and find me on Instagram. You can follow me at Christopher settle in my regular Instagram profile. That's where I do my, without a map live streams. Those are usually Friday nights at eight o'clock and they're free flowing. I talk about the podcast that I did. I get a little more in depth. I share some funny stuff, personal stuff, things like that. It's very interactive. So a way to communicate more with all you great people that are listening to this and checking out my work everywhere. And we'll see if this Friday, if there's any problems, I always have issues starting the live stream. So it always starts with me saying, yay, I'm late. So we'll see if that's the way it goes. 

Visit my home website, Christopher Setterlund.com. Designed and maintained by my oldest friend, Barry Menard, a great graphic designer from Rhode Island. It's got links to the podcast. It's got links to all five of my current books. It'll have a link to my sixth book when it comes out the week of May 24th, iconic hotels and resorts of Cape Cod through the history press. Obviously there will be more and more news about that as it gets closer, I've started setting up events for the book, but thus far, they're all virtual. And hopefully things will change where the ones later in the summer will be in person, check out my Zazzle store, Cape Cod living. It's got a lot of Cape Cod merge stuff that I've done. It's all from my own mind. Some podcast merch, bumper sticker I've got one on my car and a Key chain. I have my Massachusetts after dark calendar for 2021, featuring a lot of my own long exposure photos from all around the state. It's getting later and later it's April now so you'll get it. And you'll already not be able to use a quarter or a third of the calendar. Oh, man. This year is flying by. 

Go to Wear your wishes.com. Katie marks' clothing and apparel store. She's got a lot of new stuff coming out for the spring and the summer. She's very excited. She's been selling out a lot of her stuff, so it's starting to take off and it's only going to get bigger. So you can always go there and grab something and say you were in on the bottom floor. I hope you enjoyed this episode, doing that celebration of life for my Nina, it was. Bittersweet. It was a little hard, but it was great to get to kind of tell you all about her and my experiences growing up with her. I wanted to share that her legacy, she doesn't need me to validate her legacy, but it was just nice to get to share that. And hopefully it brought back some nice memories for all of you, for your Grandparents that you had, or any other loved ones that you had and have lost. That was the overall point of sharing that was to bring good feelings to everyone who's listening for people that they've lost

I'll be back next week for sweet 16 episode 16 of the podcast. I'm going to share the history of one of Cape Cod's most well-known speakeasies from the prohibition days. And speaking in a prohibition, I'm going to give a little bit of insight as to why I chose to stop drinking back in the fall of 2020 for anyone who's maybe looking to cut back themselves or anyone else who can, will understand where I'm coming from. We're going to go way, way back in the day to DMX the digital music express, which was kind of a precursor to satellite radio and things like that. I don't know how many of you have remembered it. It was from the early 90's, but it's going to be fun to go back over that because I remembered having it.
 
 And we've got a loaded this week in history. It's probably the most loaded one I've had, including the sinking of the Titanic, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and more, but until then, Take care of yourselves. Take time for yourselves. It's not been an easy last year plus with this frigging COVID and everyone, I feel like it's getting to the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm vaccinated, my mother and one of my sisters have gotten their first shots, but it's not over. So I feel like everyone's burned out from all of this and I totally get it. So make time for yourselves. It's okay to not be okay. And it's okay to just take time for yourselves and binge Netflix or eat ice cream or whatever you gotta do to get by.
 
 And thank you again to all of you that have tuned in shared it, checked out any of my content anywhere. I really appreciate it. Remember don't ever walk in anyone's footsteps, create your own path and this journey. Yeah. We call life and enjoy every moment you can because you never know what the journey will end. Thank you so much. Take care. Talk to you all again soon.