Episode 24: Chef Mason Pryme Interview(Cleat & Anchor); Cape Cod's Target Ship; What Is A Xennial?; This Week In History(First Drive-In)(6-10-2021)

Episode 24 starts off with a special interview.  Mason Pryme is a highly-rated, award-winning chef. He is now plying his trade at the Cleat & Anchor in Dennis Port.  He shared why this is his favorite place he has worked thus far and why you should come visit(Hint: Smoked BBQ, a huge craft beer list, live entertainment)
For decades a looming hulk sat out in Cape Cod Bay. Though it is not visible anymore the SS James Longstreet still resides off the coast of Eastham, just underneath the waves.  Learn all about Cape Cod's target ship, how it got there, and why the bombings of it stopped.
Most generations have a fairly common line of demarcation.  Generation-X, Millenials, Baby Boomers, most know when these generations began and ended.  However for Gen-X and Millenials there is a bit of an overlap.  What of those born in that time period?  You might just be something called a Xennial, and I'll explain what that is.
This Week In History includes the opening of the first drive-in theater and more.  There is also a special birthday related Time Capsule as well.
Also be sure to check out my 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

• Purchase Iconic Hotels and Motels of Cape Cod
• Wear Your Wish
• DJ Williams Music
• Laura and Tony's Kitchen
• Cleat and Anchor
• Christopher Setterlund's YouTube Channel
• In My Footsteps Podcast Blog
• Christopher Setterlund.com

Listen to Episode 23 here.

Transcript

Intro

Hello World, and welcome to episode 24 of the in my footsteps podcast. I am your host, Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We are here right before the start of summer, right before the crush of tourists comes down here. So when I say vacation destination we are about to live through the reality of it. This is the time of year when our population swells, the roads get backed up the traffic is crazy. This is where my home field advantage comes into play where I know all the back roads and can kind of navigate around traffic. But sadly now everyone's got GPS is that will reroute you around the traffic so it's not quite the same as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. Here's a big question though. How's everybody's allergies doing out there? I have found that this year, the pollen has been as bad as I've ever seen it I don't know if it's just me and I'm just seeing it differently. But man, it's really been beaten the hell out of me and my car, I have a white car. So it gets covered with pollen and it's got this greenish hue to it. Almost every day I tried to spray off with a hose and it's just within a few hours. It's green again. It's almost like why even bother? Why waste your time spraying it off? Why waste your money on a car wash, when it's just going to be ruined again, I want to say thank you upfront to everyone who has purchased my new book iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod, either through Arcadia Publishing, or through Amazon or in any bookstore that you can find it. I hope that if you've gotten it, you've enjoyed it. Let me know drop me a message. Christopher setterlund@gmail.com or DM me through social media just let me know what you've thought of the book. I'm also very happy with the response that I received to Episode 22, which was the shorter bonus episode dedicated to mental health awareness where I went over my own dealings with depression and shared some facts and myths about mental health trying to get rid of the stigma around it, especially for men. So thank you all for listening to that and the positive response I got. But here I'm excited about episode 24. We're gonna get started because we've got a special interview with a highly rated New England chef Mason Pryme and his restaurant that he is the executive chef at the Cleat and anchor in Dennis port. He talks a lot about why you should go there the smoked barbecue, the owners are doing a great job they've got this amazing craft beer list and cocktail list. So we're going to talk to Mason about why you should visit the Cleat and anchor and Dennis port. I'm going to share the story of the ss James Long Street which was also known as Cape Cod's target ship. So for anyone that's a longtime Cape Cod are you'll know what it is, anyone who's never heard of it, you're gonna love the story. It's pretty wild, but it's 100% True. I'm going to share my research into the micro-generation known as Xennial. For my back in the day segment. This is something that I discovered only a couple of years ago. It goes against my generation X leanings. So that's interesting. We'll see if any of you out there fall into that category to have a Xennial. Of course, we got this week in history, including the opening of the very first drive-in theater, and a new time capsule that happens to fall with a very special birthday. So stay tuned for that. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast wherever you're getting it from any of the platforms. If you're listening on lemonadio.com First we're going to dive right into the interview with Mason Pryme. We're outside the Clinton anchor restaurant. So if you hear any ambient noise cars birds were outside, this is episode 24 of the podcast. Let's go take a walk and let's dive right into the interview here is Mason prime. 

Chef Mason Pryme Interview

CS: Alright, so we're here at the Cleat and Anchor on Lower County Road in Dennis port. I'm out here with the executive chef Mason Pryme. So, first of all, tell us about what makes Cleat and Anchor must visit for local and visitors? Why should people come and check it out? 

MP: Well, first and foremost, I'd like to highlight the smoking program that we have. We do eight to 10 different things every week, ribs, brisket, chicken, wild game, all different kinds of charcuterie, we make our own bacon in-house our own sausage in house. And we have one of the best beer lists in Cape Cod, if not New England, and the front of the house also has an amazing craft cocktail collection, one that you should definitely check out. That's one of the features here, some people even come here just to drink, but trying to get the food to where the drinking is at this point, and make it all come together as a destination.

CS: Is it lunch and dinner? Or is it just dinner? 

MP: It's dinner right now, we do brunches on the weekends, from 10 to four, Saturday and Sunday. And we're going to start doing dinner from four o'clock till 10 o'clock, as the summer rolls, and we get properly staffed, we're also going to start a late-night menu from 10 to 1230, to pair with the live music that we have. So you know the people that had a little bit too much to drink and get something to eat as well.

CS: Awesome. That sounds good. All right. So for the listeners out there, just tell them a little bit about yourself as a chef and kind of how you came up in the culinary industry.

MP: Um, my parents owned a restaurant when I was growing up. So I kind of got my first taste of it there. I've just worked my way up through the ranks. I mean, I've done pretty much everything that you can do in a restaurant, worked in a lot of the finer restaurants on Cape, a bunch up in Stowe, Vermont, you know, met quite a few good people around here. But really, you know, I found over the years, it really comes down to like, Do you have a team with you? Do you have a team that's gonna listen to you and follows you, and also be able to do what they're supposed to do one at a time and it's busy.

CS: Do you have a signature dish, or a signature style that you like to cook. Are you kind of like adaptable to whatever there is that like the ingredients you have?

MP: Each restaurant that I've run I do a little bit differently in but I like to take classical dishes, classical flavor pairings and throw something out of the ordinary. And it just tweaked the presentation a little bit. Parts of the dish are daring for people. But also there are the flavors that they recognize and they're comfortable with. So they're willing to go out on a limb and try it the first time. That's kind of what I try and do I like, you know, smoke food wild game, a lot of like, local products as much as I can. But that gets harder every year.

CS: Give yourself a little bit of a have a shine, like what knowing you over the years, you've gotten many awards, and you've celebrated I don't want to just say he's a random chef, be someone that's very reputable. I think he's one of the best I've ever worked with as a person and a chef. So I wanted to kind of let you promote yourself. For people that may not be familiar with you with Cleat and anchor, just a chance to give yourself a little bit of a shine to pump yourself up. Because you're way more humble than you should be. And that's coming from someone that's known you for years.

MP: I don't feel very humble, but I mean, I've owned my own restaurant before for a few years. We won the OpenTable diners Choice Award for food back to back years 2018 and 2019 That was the Flats in Brewster, unfortunately, like it's gone now. You know, I worked at a bunch of places. I got my chops up in Stowe, Vermont. I did my apprenticeship under one of the top 50 chefs in the US Yves Dube, give him a shout out as well. You know, I've worked at some of the better places on Cape Cod. I've worked I did a six-year stint at the red pheasant with the Atwoods. I was part of the growing up process and moving customers tavern. I've worked around at like eight or 10 other restaurants. Here. They're allowing me to continue what I wanted to do at my restaurant. And I'm kind of taking what they already had as a cornerstone and molding my techniques and flavor pairings into that and the things that I enjoy to do and they love to have me here and I'm excited to be here. It's one of the best like management teams I've ever worked for. The owners are young, hungry, amazing, and extremely intelligent. They're also very accomplished as well.

CS: In addition to the Cleat and anchor, I know that you are working hard at the Southside cantina, which is located across the street. Tell us a little bit about that spot. Well,

MP: I mean, we're doing like kind of a play on like high-end Mexican street food over there. More of a light atmosphere. It's cantina style. There's a lot of like music, dancing, drinking. A lot of great food too. We brought in like a new chef this year. He's doing great over there. The food is amazing. It's authentic, be hard-pressed to find butter Max Can food on Cape Cod in my opinion?

CS: How long has that been around because I like I said when I was looking up Southside cantina and compared to Cleat and Anchor I didn't realize you were right across the street is that been there for a while

MP: The building has been it was the sand dollar for a very long time. And this was Rum Runners over here for a very long time. So a bunch of people may associate it with that better. But this is the fifth year for the Cleat and anchor. It's the second year for the Southside Cantina.

CS: So you brought up Rum Runners a lot of longtime Cape Codders will remember that spot. And you've mentioned to me off air that this place Cleat and anchor has a unique atmosphere as far as a typical restaurant goes. So can you expand kind of on the atmosphere part?

MP: Yeah, we kept a lot of the, you know, more Cape Cod themed pieces that were in rum runners. You know, there's a lot of the tuna tails, a lot of the lures. But we've also done that out with like a new age, kind of industrial kind of look inside, a little more clean, wide open. You know, we do dark leagues here. There are all kinds of stuff. We got live music a lot in the summer, like three to five nights. You know, it's one of the more happening nightspots in the area for sure. Like there's a kind of a triangle here between the three restaurants cheapens, and the other two here, the clean anchor and the Southside Cantina. I mean, there are so many people here in the summer that there's a line out the door of all three. So this is a place to be anyone who's coming down here in the summer, you've got to definitely check out Cleat and anchor, listen to the music, have some drinks and just enjoy the atmosphere. Summer is going to be good. It's good to be back on Cape Cod, so you gotta get down here. 

CS: Before we finished up with Mason, we took a field trip over to the other side of the restaurant to have a chat with Carl the pit master as he was loading Tabitha the smoker up with ribs to be smoked for the night. And he gave us some insight just into the whole process of smoking meats. So this is Carl’s part. So before we finish up here at the Cleat and anchor, I'm here with Carl who is the pit-master head of security. And I wanted to get a little more information about Tabitha the smoker that looks like a pig.

Carl: She was handmade in Harwich, by Michael Cole at envisioned Ironworks. He went to high school with the owners Chris and Tony fawns. He's done metal workforce before all of our repairs and whatnot. They wanted a smoker and Tabitha came from that. 

CS: And how much can this hold?

Carl: If you stuff it 16 racks or ribs at a time I've smoked 140 pounds of brisket for tacos. So it's a rough Cold Smoke not fully cooked. That then get braised and become our Bubba Corolla taco over the cantina. We've done I've done 13 pork butts in this big and that's stuffing things, you have to be on your P's and Q's you don't catch things on fire at that point. 16 racks of ribs is pretty much pushing it, or 70 pounds of chicken wings at a time. Sometimes you split it up between the pig and the hot box.

CS: And you also said that this draws a lot of attention

Carl: Quite a lot of attention. So like any little boy goes by thinks train, man bore this more you see a pig was smoke coming out of it. We had one time we had a concerned citizen report that our building was on fire and smoke was billowing out. Whereas we were just cooking. Dennis fire department was kind enough to come by and make sure we weren't on fire. And then we all got to laugh that one off

CS: And you said before that you're getting in a bigger smoker coming up

Carl: We're getting in. So if you see pit masters render those commercial large egg-shaped ones. So approximately a nine by four cook surface. We can do up to 75 racks of ribs at a time in that which will be a big switch from 16 and eight hours.

CS: And when is that one coming in?

Carl: They were supposed to be May but with everything being how it is and with you know here hopefully at the tail end of COVID and the new old New Normal that we're looking at mid-June now, but it will be coming.

CS: So remember that come down here for the tabs of the smoker. What did you say what can you get from here? I mean, you gotta get ribs.

Carl: We have a St. Louis style pork rib. We have a jumbo chicken wing, we have pulled pork. We also have our own homemade sausage. We smoked brisket points for our secretory program. We recently started we added a feature RONIS so like it's a smoked and then fried pork belly. We make our own homemade bacon in the smoker. We smoke our own salmon for grab blocks for brunch. So if you want to de vos delightful salmon, smoked salmon bagel you've ever had, come see us. It's great. 

CS: That sounds great

Carl: There's the smoke festival program that we do. There's other stuff that's working here. If you drive by lower county road it's out outside, you can see it from the street, just make sure that if you come up to see it, it's not a train, don't ride it. And don't get too close because it's hot, very hot. 

CS: Thank you so much call for expanding a little bit on Tabitha the smoker, and I will do my best to stay out of your way as you're about to get more ribs I think from Mason.

Carl: No problem whatsoever. Thank you for coming.

CS: I wanted to conclude with obviously, for people that don't know, Mason and I worked together, years ago at another restaurant, that's how I got to know him and his skill as a chef. And obviously, for me, my passion is more arts and creative and podcasts, etc. So for you someone who's been a life, or what is it about the culinary industry that you enjoy most, it's a tough business at times, but yet you thrive and succeed, everywhere you go. So what is it that keeps you going?

MP: I just like to create things with food. I mean, food is, I've always liked it, if you look at me, you can tell that. No, but I mean, I like to make good food for people I like it's one of the things, you know, you need it to survive for one. But if you're gonna get to enjoy at the level that I try and supply to you, I mean, I try and keep a little bit on the menu for everyone. I try and create things that no one else has done. I've accomplished it a few times. But it's, you know, it gets harder, I just like to recreate like things and put my own twist on them. And I get a sense of accomplishment out of it. You know, it's by like the organized chaos, let's say without that, like, you know, my mind would wander off in too many places. So it keeps me entertained. It's hard work. But you either love it. And if you've been in it as long as I have or you don't, and you get out of it quickly.

CS: Well, you've definitely you've left your mark everywhere you've gone in such positive ways. And that's part of the reason why I'm down here interviewing you for the podcast about Cleat and anchor because I know your talent and your skill. And I know that it's going to show in this place. So I'm hoping everybody out there listening comes down to the Cleat and anchor to 43 Lower County Road and Dennis port. And if you stop in, tell the people at the front to tell Mason that you heard it on the podcast, and that'll give him a laugh. Thank you so much. So Mason for joining us. 

MP: Oh, I mean, I appreciate you for having me. It's, you know, I mean, I enjoy just even like, getting to, like, you know, talk to like the community. And we made a lot of changes down here. And we're hoping people, you know, come give us a try. Or maybe it's like already one of your favorite spots. We got a lot of locals to come in here all the time. And we appreciate that, but kind of changing our approach to things and hopefully you guys enjoy it. If not, I'm looking forward to some input.

CS: Thank you so much. And definitely check out Cleat and anchor, I know I'll be having something to eat right after I stop this interview. 

SS James Longstreet: Cape Cod’s Target Ship

Being a 12th generation Cape Cod er And growing up and living here for the vast majority of my life, I'm privy to a lot of lesser-known stories and places to visit that give me I always say a home field advantage, especially when photography, but it also helps in sharing some stories and things from back in the day where they're kind of commonplace to me, but to the people that didn't grow up on Cape Cod, seeing their faces when I share these stories that are like, Wow, that really was part of Cape Cod. And so that's always exciting. And that's this one here. I think some of you will know many of you will not. This is the story of Cape Cod's own target ship known as the SS James Longstreet. For more than five decades, it was this giant rusting hulk of a ship out in Cape Cod Bay roughly off the coast of East Ham. The ship was created for World War Two and named for a Confederate Civil War General and it's not visible anymore. For anyone that grew up here in the last 6070 years. They definitely remember the target ship. Just real quick. James Longstreet was born in South Carolina in 1821. Graduated West Point in 1842. He eventually was given the rank of brigadier general. He at first gained the trust of Robert E Lee but then grew weary of his strategic moves. After the war, he held several federal offices. Ironically, under former Union General Ulysses S. Grant who became president, he became an ambassador to Turkey, as well as US Marshal for the state of Georgia. But rumors of corruption led to him being removed from that ladder post in 1884. Interestingly, in 1897, he married a woman Helen Dortch. She was 40 years younger than him and Longstreet died January 2 1904 of pneumonia. But the interesting thing is that his wife, she lived until 1962. which made her living civil war widow nearly a century after the war ended, which is just fascinating. Fast forward to World War Two in 1941, over 2700 cargo ships known as liberty ships were built to help move supplies overseas. One of these was a 417-foot long 7000-ton steel beast named after James Longstreet assembled in Houston, Texas and put into wartime service in October 1942. The vessel only made three journeys abroad, because during the fall of 1943, it was one of four ships to be forced to ground at Sandy Hook, New Jersey in gale force winds, and it sat on title flats for a month before finally being refloated November 23 1943. But when it was towed into New York, it was deemed a total structural loss and decommissioned and sent to a ship graveyard. In early 1944, the Navy acquired the long street as a target ship for surface to air missiles, and it sat in New York Harbor until another big storm ripped it from its moorings and sent it drifting away. And it was finally found after many weeks of being missing, and it was towed to Norfolk, Virginia, where it awaited its next assignment. So it was around this time the Navy began project dove, which was a guided missile project. They had been using areas on Cape Cod of Monomoy Island and camp Wellfleet, which is east of LaCount hollow road for people that are from Cape Cod. They were doing land tests, but they desired a target ship for water testing. That's where the long street came into play. On April 25 1945, as World War Two was coming to an end, the former Liberty ship was towed into Cape Cod Bay and anchored in shallow water off of East Ham on a spot called New Found Shoal. The SS Longstreet was ballast with more than 10,000 steel drums and scrap metal, and it was partially sunk. And that's where the real fun began. Because the bombings of the ship went on day and night during the summer. And the times of the bombings were never known to the residents in East Ham Wellfleet Orleans and Brewster where you could hear him all you'd hear is the rumbles of approaching aircraft. And then boom came the bombings of the ship. It wasn't always bad though because the July 4 bombing raids were a particular thrill to tourists and children. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, tons and tons of ammunition was fired into and upon the vessel, until it looked like rusting steel, Swiss cheese, but as you can imagine, not everyone was enamored with Cape Cod's newest and oddest tourist attraction. The noise and rumbling of windows of the homes in the surrounding areas were bad enough but even worse, occasionally, an errant bomb would fall in a neighborhood. The most well-known of these incidents was when a bomb exploded near the front door of a home on Shurtleff Road in East Ham on Mother's Day 1951 And nobody was injured but it was still, just imagine an errant bomb explodes in someone's front yard. After about 25 years in service as a pin cushion for bombs. The SS James Longstreet was retired in 1970. And the reasons were basically you know, the proximity of the public to the bombings, they finally figured that might not be smart to have even the small chance of an errant bomb landing in someone's yard and blowing up. That's probably not the best look. But also the closing of the Quonset pond Naval Station, North Kingstown Rhode Island that kind of made it were the aircraft coming from there to bomb it, it was too far to go from anywhere closer. Despite it being retired from bombing, it became a popular attraction for photographers, painters, and even graffiti artists. In 1966, someone sprayed a large Playboy Bunny logo on the side of the ship. And there were calls by some people to just sink the ship and get it underwater, so it was out of the way. But time did that on its own. April 1996, saw a storm finally submerge the whole of the SS Longstreet. Occasionally, when the tide is low, enough bits of the ship will peak above water. So if you're going out there, it's about two miles west of first encounter Beach, nearly do West. And if you go out there, about two miles, it's there. It's not that it's gone. It's underwater. So SS LongStreet is still a part of Cape Cod Bay. It's probably now I would think kind of like a coral reef. There must be sea creatures that live in it. And I'll say I never saw the target ship. If I did. I didn't know what it was. but it was something there are photos you can find online, it was over 400 feet long. Imagine if you're on the shore of the beach and you're looking and there's a big cargo ship passing by a mile two miles offshore, you can see it. That was basically what the target ship was just sitting out in Cape Cod Bay. All during my lifetime growing up as a child, I heard about it. And it was obviously retired. So there was never a reason to go see it, if it was going to get bombed, it was just there. But it's just a fascinating story of that whole thing, having a ship getting bombed right offshore, especially because it's been underwater now for 25 years. So people that are even as old as their early 30s would have no memory of that ever even existing. That's another one of my favorite things about doing this podcast is that these obscure things that I find fascinating, I can share and even if some of you couldn't care less about it, there are some that remember the target ship or will find it interesting and go search for photos of it. If you want to see more photos and see the GPS location of the James Longstreet. Go to my blog, Christopher setterlund.blogspot.com. That's my in my footsteps podcast blog. And I have an article up there about the SS James Longstreet. So you can check it out, read it, see the photos, go out there and see if you can find the ship. It's gotta be really low tide, maybe you'll see something. But regardless, it is out there that James Longstreet just underwater now.

What Is A Xennial?

A few weeks ago on Facebook, there was a conversation that was taking place between my sister Ashley and my niece Kaleigh and some of their friends and I jumped in and the rest of the siblings jumped in with the idea of generations. Where do you fall as far as what is considered a generation, generation X, millennials? You know, the older folks are the baby boomers. Now, it seems like there are floating lines of demarcation as far as years and characteristics of each group. And I thought it would be interesting to kind of look at something that I found out when researching because I always say I consider myself straight-up Generation X. But there was something I learned as I was researching that. It said I fall into an interesting little subgenre that is in between Generation X and Millennial. It blew my mind. And it's absolutely true. So as much as I want to say I'm straight-up Generation X, I am something different altogether. I am part of a micro-generation that is known as Xennial basically a combination of Generation X and Millennial. So let's take a dive into what exactly is the difference between a Gen X or millennial and Xennial. I always consider myself prototypical Generation X I came of age listening to the grunge music. I had the flannel shirts and torn jeans when my senior photo in high school I've got the red flannel shirt on. I mean God my one of my oldest stations on my Pandora app is called torn jeans and flannel and it's dedicated to grunge music. So that's me. The group Generation X typically is reserved for the people born between 1965 and 1980. The name itself Generation X was coined by war photographer Robert Capa, his phrase was first uttered in 1952 and referred to young people with a fatalistic view of the future. And that's, I mean, I don't know if I have a fatalistic view, or if I did, I was definitely filled with teenage angst. But the term Generation X first came into pop culture in 1991, with the release of Douglas Copeland's novel of the same name, and where I feel I relate to Generation X, it's, we were the first ones that had personal computers in school, complete with The Oregon Trail game and dying of dysentery. We were also I feel the last to be just thrown out the front door of the house in the summer, you know, stay out until the streetlights come on. But you still knew when you got home, you had Nintendo waiting for you. So you had video games, but they didn't run your life. And Gen X has been they were defined as lazy slackers as they got older yet, as we grew up, we've been at the forefront of entrepreneurial achievements to find independence, artistic, these are all characteristics that I feel define me, which is why I always said I'm Generation X. But what about Generation Y the millennials? They're considered to be born roughly between 1981 and 2004. And they're the generation currently stepping into that forefront. They're seen as the group born into this rise of technology, the home computers, smartphones, GPS, we've got self-parking cars, all that is just things that now Millennials just have, like I'm of the age that I'm old enough to remember not having these things, but young enough to still appreciate them. And Millennials are basically double the size of Generation X, they rivaled the size of the baby boomer generation. So that only adds to the Generation X idea of like the world's against us, if the generations that surround us are double our size. And this group, the millennials have been nurtured more than Generation X, perhaps due to the changes seen in the world by Generation X. So the balance between staying outside to play and the lure of video games has shifted to video games, and you see that younger people are constantly on their phone playing video games online. But that's like their normal culture. So for me seeing it, I might not understand it. But they may look at me and say God used to like, hang outside and play in the dirt all day. Why would you want to do that? So I get the culture shift. As much as I enjoy technology, it's the millennials that really have a grasp on it. All you have to do is look at Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube, the term influencer. I mean, what the hell is an influencer is just someone that makes videos, and then they get so popular that sponsors want to advertise with them. And that's something that I'm trying to do, but that generation just has it. They just know it, it's ingrained. So we'll circle back to what I said at the beginning, that I'm part of a micro-generation known as Xennial. So what exactly is that? I learned all this in an article from the USA Today newspaper that was written in December of 2018, if you want to go find it, and it's also referenced in a piece from buzzfeed.com, from July 2013. So there's a couple of things about Xennial. Roughly, it's people born between 1977 and 1983. And obviously, you exude traits from both generations. And I liken it to a Venn diagram. For those that aren't math fans. It's like two big circles of A and B. And then there's this little c part where the circles overlap. And that's basically what the micro-generation is. Only after reading these two articles that I realized that it fit me to a tee that I really am part of this micro-generation like I said, I love all the technological advances. I mean, I'm doing a podcast, the stuff wasn't real, you know, 20 years ago, I would have needed a radio show. And I'm not that successful to get on the radio. So I can do this, by recording it on a laptop. I've got my smartphone in front of me. But that being said, when I get done recording parts of the podcast, I can look outside and see that it's sunny out right now. And all I want to do is either go for a walk, or grab my camera and go take some photos. So I still have that lore of when I was a kid being thrown out and said go play until the streetlights come on. That's still part of me. I straddle that line, like I'm sure some of you that are in your 40s around my age, you straddle that line between wishing it was still the old days, but kind of being excited about things that are coming up. Not necessarily all world events, but I mean, technological advances and possibilities and things like that. I love checking out old photos, Polaroids, VHS tapes, and Nintendo, watching videos of old commercials. I like that stuff. Check them out on YouTube, there's an account 80s commercial vault, that's a way to kill some time and find some great nostalgia. But yet I also love the idea of watching these old commercials and being able to pause the video, go on to Google and Google whatever the commercial was to see what happened to that product. When I started doing travel writing and travel trips, I didn't have a GPS in 2010 I had to write directions down and that sucked. I don't want to go back to that. I'd rather punch stuff into my smartphone and have it take me there. I am a retro techno geek. That's what I think I am and I'm a Xennial part Generation X part millennial. And when it comes to these lines of demarcation as far as generations go and they kind of float so I've seen Xennial listed as a few years earlier or later. Same with Generation X same with millennials all that stuff. But I think it comes down to what you feel inside like you feel when you relate to a group. But what are you? You that's listening now? Are you a full on Gen X or are you a Millennial Generation Y or are you something in between? Like I said check out those articles to the USA today Xennial article and the BuzzFeed one, I'll stick a link for them in the description of the podcast. I don't know if you can see those, like when you go on Apple and such, I don't know if the links are there. If you go through Buzzsprout, they're there. And if you want them, shoot me a message and I'll just send you the links, because it's really interesting and it's fun to waste a little time wondering who you are. But that's my take on the micro-generation known as Xennial that I found out that I was several years ago.

Sponsor: Laura and Tony’s Kitchen

There's nothing better first thing in the morning that a good breakfast, maybe a good breakfast with a new release of my podcast, which drops at 5am. But I digress. Cape Cod is home to many good breakfasts and some great breakfasts. And if you want the best of breakfast, there's only one place you can go and that's Laura and Tony's kitchen in northeast ham located on Route six, right before the Wellfleet drive in this spot has been providing the best breakfast buffet small batch cooking. It's incredible. I've been there so many times. And I love it every time. It's awesome. But COVID has unfortunately forced them to pivot some. So what's happening is they're going to be introducing Laura and Tony's kitchen and gourmet market cafe. They're reopening in mid-June and they're going to be better than ever the best of both worlds. They're going to be serving everything from their homemade bagels with the buttery smoked salmon. Tony's legendary Mexican noodles, crisp salads, organic grilled chicken sandwiches served all day. If you haven't been there, you need to get there when they reopen. If you have been there, you already know all about it. I would say they're a hidden gem. But if you've ever been there during the busiest parts of the days, you know everybody knows about Laura and Tony's before they reopen in June. You can go to Laura and Tony's kitchen.com Place some online orders. See what they've got. Also go to Laura and Tony's kitchen@etsy.com They offer free local delivery. Any questions give a call to Laura at 508-221-7151 and be there when they reopen in mid June. I'll definitely keep you updated. But I wanted to get the word out ahead of time. Laura and Tony's kitchen and gourmet market cafe, the best breakfast on Cape Cod bar none be there.

This Week In History

This week in history starts off with one of the biggest moments ever. Well, that's highly sarcastic 25 years ago this week, June 8 1996. I graduated high school, I had to include this in here because I still can't figure how in the hell it's been 25 years since I graduated high school. And obviously, this year with things still not fully back to normal. We didn't have time to really put together any sort of 25th reunion special meal or something. So I figured this was a way to give a shout-out to all of my class of 96 peeps from Dennis Yarmouth Regional High School way back in the day, that's when I graduated. I remember when I went up there to get my diploma. I had this thing I had seen a couple of other friends do things when they went to get their diplomas, kind of leaving a lasting memory. So what I did when they called my name was I did a strut across the stage like Ric Flair, the wrestler, so that's forever ingrained in people's heads when I graduated was my Ric Flair strut. It's a funny thing, high school graduations, it's like you are in a rush to get to that finish line. And then when you get to that finish line and you get your diploma then it's like whoa, whoa, wait, slow everything down. Because now it's like, Hey, you're an adult, you can go to college and put it off a few more years. But it's amazing how quickly I wanted to get out of high school. And now I've got days where I look back and like man, I wish I was still there. 25 years ago, this week, I strutted across the stage and got my diploma and got sunburned as I graduated from Dennis Yarmouth High School. This week in history. 88 years ago this week, June 6 1933. The first ever drive in theater opened in Camden, New Jersey, located on Crescent Boulevard in Camden. It was originally considered to be a park in theater because you didn't you know, they figured you parked your car to see the movie you didn't keep driving. The idea of this park in slash drive-in theater was the brainchild of Richard Hollingshead, who was a movie fan and a sales manager at his father's company with auto products in Camden. And it was inspired by his mother's struggle to sit comfortably in traditional movie seats. So this idea of an open-air theater came from that and then an interesting note is the fact that Hollingshead tried to patent the drive-in theater. So basically in the 30s, through most of the 40s, the growth of drive-in theaters was slow. And then in 1949, the patent was overturned and then drive-in theaters were everywhere. By the late 50s. And into the mid-1960s. There were up to 5000 Drive-in theaters in the country, but they declined through the 1980s to where there's fewer than 500 left now, on Cape Cod, there's just a Wellfleet one although last year when COVID was really going crazy, the Yarmouth drive and came back, which was interesting because that was where I remembered going as a kid. And who knows maybe the new normal is more drive-in theaters reopening will be neat. I loved it as a kid going to see ET or Flash Gordon in the Yarmouth driving, they must still have some value because the wealthy driving is packed every day of the summer when they're open. It's like a rite of passage to go there when you're visiting Cape Cod or if you live here, and the drive-in theater had its first showing 88 years ago this week in history. 63 years ago this week in history, June 7 1958. Prince Rogers Nelson is born, also known as Prince, one of the most talented musical artists ever to walk the earth. His first album was released in 1978. During the disco craze, that album did okay. But it was his second album, the self-titled one in October 1979, that had the song I want to be your lover. That was his first real big-hit single. And then in the 80s. Like God, Prince was everywhere. He's had dozens of hit songs, Purple Rain, Little Red Corvette, Raspberry Beret, sign of the times, let's go crazy, 1999, Delirious, pop life, I could just go on and on. And the huge thing when I was growing up in the 80s was who was the bigger star Prince or Michael Jackson. And as the years went on, it became more apparent that Prince was the winner of that because Michael Jackson's extracurricular activities really swung the balance of power. And I think I'm going to do a much longer in-depth segment on prints because as I'm doing this right now, I'm realizing there's so much ground to cover. So I'll keep this one short, and then later on, we'll do another segment, but just go stream, the Purple Rain album, maybe not the movie as much, but just listen to that music and the genius of Prince who was born 63 years ago this week in history. 24 years ago this week, June 9 1997, the finale of the TV show Married with Children aired on Fox. The show ran for 11 seasons, and 259 episodes, and was the last of the original Fox lineup to last. I mean, from day one Simpsons don't count because they were on Tracy Ullman. They didn't have their own show. But married with children is one of those. They broke all sorts of barriers and cross so many lines with the stuff they would have on there as subjects is a bit it's centered around the Bundy family in Chicago, Illinois. Al Bundy, the shoe salesman, Peg his wife that stays at home and just doesn't do anything. And their kids, Kelly and Bud and the dog buck. I have to laugh now because when the show first came out, I was nine going on 10 years old. And my mother didn't know what it was all about. And I was allowed to stay up and watch it. And then as I got older and she realized what the show was, she was just mortified that she had allowed me to watch it when I was a kid. If you watch it, you know the first four or five seasons are just off the charts good. When Steve Rhodes leaves and they bring in Jefferson. It's still funny, but not quite as good and the quality starts to dip somewhere it got more cartoonish, but there's no doubting the impact of married with children. And the final episode aired 24 years ago this week in history. And now we've got a special time capsule to end off this week in history. We're going back to June 6 1983, also known as the birth date of my brother, Matt. So now you get to hear all that was going on on the day you were born. 38 years ago this week. The number one song was Flashdance by Irene Cara. The song was from the soundtrack of the movie of the same name and spent six weeks at number one it was basically the only hit by Irene Cara. The movie was a big hit. as well, raking in more than $200 million in the US on a budget of 7 million, so it did pretty well. The number one movie was Return of the Jedi, which was the final in the trilogy of the original Star Wars films. And another movie that I actually saw in the driving when I was a kid. The film concluded the story of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader and all of those characters. It made close to $500 million on a budget of around 40 million and would be the final Star Wars film until 1999. When the Phantom Menace debuted, the number one TV show was hart to hart. It ran for five seasons from 1979 to 1984, and starred Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers, who were a wealthy couple leading this glamorous Jet Set lifestyle, but who routinely find themselves as unpaid detectives in order to solve the crimes that they become embroiled in. After the series ended in the spring of 1984. The show actually had a big revival with aid made for TV movies starting in 1993. And if you were a child in 1983, well, maybe not a newborn child like my brother Matt was, but a young kid, the top toy to get was the world-famous Cabbage Patch Doll. And you could get one for $25 when if you round it up for inflation today would be $67, which seems a lot for, even though a cabbage patch doll was a big deal. And they were the huge hit toy bigger than Tickle Me Elmo and Furbies. And all that stuff. Cabbage Patch dolls were everywhere. They had their own adoption records, and they were soft bodies with hard heads that looked like a head of cabbage. And they're still available today. They also spawned one of my favorite things growing up, which was Garbage Pail Kids trading cards, but I'll dig way deeper into those in a future podcast episode. And that ties up another time capsule. Happy birthday to my brother, Matt, I hope that you have a great day for your 38th on the shirt. I'll see you. And hopefully you'll hear this and know that I wished you a happy birthday. That ends another this week in history. I'll be back next week, a new podcast with some more fun stuff that happened this week in history.

Closing

And that's going to wrap up episode 24 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you again to Chef Mason prime for letting us check out the Cleat and anchor and give us a little information about what that restaurant is all about. Go and check them out at any time dinner, have a couple of cocktails listen to some music. Remember to tune in to my weekly live stream called without a map. Those are on Instagram every Friday at eight o'clock. We chat a little more in-depth about the podcast what's gone on with it preview future episodes and I go off the rails and share embarrassing funny stories. Usually, I've got a couple of birthday shoutouts. You've already heard the one about my brother Matt. I did his actual date of birth in this week in history. So that was fun. But I wanted to give a special birthday shout-out this week, to my friend of about 30 years, John, who has actually lived in LA longer than we've been friends on Cape Cod, which is an interesting fact. He was one of those friends that we used to do radio shows way back when we were young teenagers, and that's kind of was the genesis for this podcast. I just never knew it at the time. So a big happy birthday to him. Hopefully, we'll get to hang out at some point. It's different when we're on different coasts, but who knows? Find me on Twitter, and find me on Instagram. Like I said, if you're following the live streams, you are already probably a follower. I've got a podcast page on Facebook, you can go in like, and follow. I share tons of stuff to do with the podcast and my writing there. My sixth book, as I've said iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod is available through the history press section of Arcadia Publishing. It's at Barnes and Noble. It's on Amazon. If you're on Cape Cod, southeastern Massachusetts, it's in a lot of bookstores. My last book, Cape Cod knights was available in Target so we'll see if I get in there too. I've already started work on a seventh book, but I'm waiting for I guess you'd say contracts to be signed before I actually officially tell you all what it is. But I mean it is good to go. It's just one of those. I don't want to jinx it things and if you ever or have questions about the podcast. I told you I've been looking to do a q&a segment, basically since I started the podcast. So if you ever have any questions about New England, Cape Cod history, travel, retro stuff, things like that, just shoot me an email Christopher setterlund@gmail.com. Next week, I'll be back with episode 25 of the podcast, which will include part two of restaurant storytime, which again, it's a battle involving something getting thrown at someone else. This time, it's a red bliss potato, so we'll just leave it at that as a teaser. We'll also do a road trip to Groton, Connecticut, and go back in the day to my experiences with the original energy drink, I think, jolt cola. Anyone that knows me or grew up with me knows that jolt was a big part of the radio shows that I used to do and the skits I did with my camcorder back in high school. I'm also going to debut a new segment that was put to a vote but I'll share more of that in the next podcast. Remember in this life to not follow in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path and enjoy every moment you can on this journey because you just never know. It's better to enjoy the days now than regret it later. Thank you again for tuning in to the in my footsteps Podcast. I'm Christopher Setterlund. And I will talk to you again soon