Episode 28: The Cannibals of Boon Island, Maine; Top 5 80's TV Mascots; An Epic Martha's Vineyard Photo Trip; 1980's Music Stores (7-8-2021)

Episode 28 begins with a return to the Dedication to the Craft series.  This time it is a wild, fun-filled trip Steve and I took to Martha's Vineyard.  It includes alpacas, fearless skunks, Jaws filming locations, and more!
The mood gets darker with the story of cannibalism on Boon Island, Maine.  A shipwreck 300 years ago led to the survivors making some difficult decisions.  What led to this outcome?
We go Back In the Day to some classic music stores of the 1980's.  Do you remember Record Town?  Strawberries?  There's more than that, back when people actually went in to stores to buy records and tapes.
This week's Top 5 features the best of 1980's advertising mascots.  The only catch is that cereal mascots are not included. They will get their own list.
Also check out the latest This Week In History and Time Capsule!
Be sure to watch for 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(available through Buzzsprout)

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

Listen to Episode 27 here.

Transcript

Intro

Hello World, and welcome to episode 28 of the in my footsteps podcast. I'm your host, Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. On this week's episode, we're gonna go back to the dedication to the craft photography series. As I talk all about this amazing trip over to the island of Martha's Vineyard from 2014, for a book I was doing, we're going to take a look back at a disturbing yet intriguing story of the cannibals of Boon Island, Maine, that one you're gonna like, we're gonna do a little back in the day, as we look at old school music stores, most of which you may remember you may not. And of course, you've got this week in history with a new time capsule for the Fourth of July, and the top five of the 1980s, top TV product mascots. So stay tuned for all of that coming up right now on episode 28 of the in my footsteps podcast. So how's everybody doing out there? By the time you hear this Fourth of July weekend is coming right up, I can tell you being on Cape Cod, we are packed to the gills more so than usual, it's good to see everyone traveling after how bad COVID was last year. But I'll tell you the roads get packed. And it's tough. Because it used to be back in the day. If you were around here, you knew all the back roads and how to get from point A to point B without being stuck in traffic. But now the GPS has made it so that everyone knows the back roads now. So I hope everybody that's coming down to Cape Cod for Fourth of July weekend for the rest of the summer. You know, have a great time. Go out and check out the Cape Cod baseball league that's back in action after being shut down last year. Enjoy a lot of our restaurants and shops and beaches. But mainly be patient. You know, there's a worker shortage people are having trouble. I worked in the restaurant industry for a long time. And it's a hard industry to cook in the heat to serve people who a lot of the times are just rude and disrespectful. Don't be those people, the servers, these dishwashers, these hosts, the cooks, they're all working really hard to make sure you have the best experience you can. So I just wanted to throw that out there because I'm already hearing things. And it's just terrible. People should be a little more understanding, especially after what we've been through. And what's you know, still kind of going on. Thank you to everybody who tuned in to Episode 27. Last week, thank you, as always to everyone who checks out the live streams Friday nights at 8pm. I do one called without a map. I talk about the podcast, then we go off the rails and talk about any random topic you can imagine. Those are a lot of fun. I definitely recommend tuning in to those. As I've said before, check out my newest book, iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod. I recently a couple of weeks ago did my first author event via zoom. It was way different than my typical event. I had my presentation, PowerPoint on the screen, but I had to do a screen share. So you put that up, and you can't see the other people that are there that have come into the event. So it reminded me kind of what I'm doing right now, where I'm speaking to you and recording this, but I have no idea who's listening if anyone's listening when this goes live. So it was fun. Then when I got done, then I shut the presentation down and got to see people and have questions asked. I have a few more though throughout the summer. Hopefully, in the fall I'll get to do in person ones. Libraries are just starting to reopen. I've been going to the dentist's library to do some writing work there. And that's been fun kind of return to normalcy. And with that return to normalcy. I'm hoping to maybe do a trip over to one of the islands, maybe Nantucket, maybe Martha's Vineyard. But if I can't do that, we can kick off this podcast and reminisce about one of my favorite trips over to Martha's Vineyard. This is dedication to the craft part two. This trip coming up right now is a 2014 trip to Martha's Vineyard with my buddy Steve. So let's jump right into it.

Dedication to the Craft II: Martha’s Vineyard 2014

It's a sad yet funny thing to admit. But before 2013 I had actually never been over to either of the main Cape Cod islands Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. And I grew up on Cape Cod. People were shocked that I never took a day trip there. Never one with family or school. But it was true until 2013 I had never stepped on the shores of either Island. After the publication of my first book in my footsteps of Cape Cod travel guide through Schiffer Publishing in 2013. Naturally, I was wondering what was next I didn't want to just have one book. And then that was the end. So I pitched to Schiffer, a book about Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. They liked this idea. But they actually liked the idea of better of doing one book for each island, which I was fine with having three books instead of two was just perfect with me. I was lucky, I went over to the vineyard a total of six times for the book. And I was very lucky because I had a contact a good friend named Bill who is a big wig with the Massachusetts office of travel and tourism. And he was able to finagle getting me over to the island by basically comping my tickets and my vehicle pass. And it was, I couldn't have done this book without him. Go to the steamship authority right now and see how much it costs you to bring a vehicle over to either Island. It's unbelievable. So it was several hundred dollars, I saved over the time that I went to the islands. This year I'm going to talk about with this dedication to the craft segment. This is trip number four. And it was on October 12, 2014. This was the second time I brought my buddy Steve with me. Because if you're able to get a vehicle over there for nothing, why not share the wealth and bring someone else who will enjoy and appreciate getting to do some photography at one of the just the vineyard is amazing if you've never been there. And while I know he enjoyed the trip, Steve was in for a little bit of not a rude awakening. But for this trip for the book, instead of just having natural places, beaches and things like that. I also had a lot of shops and hotels and restaurants, which meant that in addition to doing some fun travel shooting, I had to drive around and stop in front of all of these different businesses and get pictures of the business and the signs and such to put in the book. So I was plugging these places into my GPS if I needed to find them, you know places like the sweet life cafe, Ali's General Store and the tuck in Holland metal works. Tuck and Holland is in vineyard Haven and at Tuck and holland.com. But the funny thing about this was I intended to go there and just get a picture outside and then talk about it in the book. But when I pulled up one of the guys was actually outside doing some work. So I pulled up and Steve thought I was going to be two minutes like I'd go up and say hi and get a photo. But the guy he actually was really nice. And I told him what I was doing and he brought me inside the shop. And before I knew what it was 20-25 minutes, I felt bad. It was like Steve was a dog left in the car. At least he had the windows down. I remember at the time of doing this trip that they were doing a Jaws weathervane and they had kind of sketches for it. That was pretty neat. It wasn't done. But still, it was cool to see things that were in the works. We left there, I felt a little bad for leaving Steve in the car. So we went to the island alpaca company, which is also in vineyard Haven on head of the pond road. And it's like, it seems like it's out of place on the island, where you think of it as being like beachfront property and luxury hotels and such. And yet, here's this big farm with these cute little alpacas of different sizes and colors, and you go up to the fence and they come over, you can feed them and even buy them. I debated it. I thought it might be able to fit in my back seat a little one but I got plenty of great shots, action shots of the alpacas. And Steve actually came out. But I was starting to feel bad, but I knew we'd feel better the next stop. We were going over to Chappaquiddick and going to Cape Poge lighthouse, the Chappy ferry it's literally only a couple of 100 feet like by the time they start the engine up on these little ferry boats, you're already on the other side. The best part of this though, was that there was the Trustees of the Reservation. They take people out there because it's it's a couple of miles over soft sand so I wouldn't want to take my car I'd be stuck. And my buddy bill, he arranged for us to be a part of this trip. And when we got there, we were late. And so the guy was waiting with a couple of people for a tour. And I could hear him asking about oh, we're waiting for an author to take him out there. And they kind of waived or that's me. I'm sorry, I'm late. I highly recommend the trip though. Even if you don't like lighthouses, the drive out there over the soft sand you're where people really aren't. There have been at least four light towers built out there where Cape Poge currently is and when you're on the way out there you can actually see bits and pieces of old foundations and chimneys are standing. And it's crazy. The current lighthouses from 1893. And interestingly from the top, that's the only place where you can see Nantucket Island. Nantucket proper is about 15 miles from Cape Poge lighthouse. It essentially it appears as just a little blob of land on the horizon and it has to be a clear day it was clear when I was there. So I got a picture of Nantucket from the vineyard. But that's an interesting fact. The tour itself took a while I'm we're talking an hour and a half. So by the time we got back to my car and got in the Chappy ferry to go back to the mainland and Edgartown, it was getting to the point where we knew we had to find a sunset spot. That was my main selling point for Steve was to get a killer Martha's Vineyard sunset photo, and it was a toss up. It was a toss up between gay Head lighthouse and Menemsha. So for those that aren't familiar with Menemsha in the movie Jaws, that is where Quint has his boat. When they sail out on the Orca. They're going through Menemsha I had a crazy idea to maybe be able to get to both places. But from the Edgartown docks to Menemsha was 15 miles and out to gay headlight and Aquinnah was 20 miles. Being that I had dragged Steve all around the island, and besides Cape Poge, it was a lot of just shooting places for the book outsides of businesses and the alpacas. I felt bad. So I conceded, and I said, we're gonna go to gay head light, because that was where he wanted to go. Once we got there, I knew we weren't going to have time to do both. And another thing was that we got there and pulled up and Steve was off, he was off taking his photos, the sunset was great, but my phone died. So I wanted to get pictures with my phone to just throw them up on social media. But that didn't happen. I got some great photos, and it was great. I just wish I still haven't gotten that Menemsha sunset photo. We're going on seven years later. But lighthouses combined with a sunset you can't go wrong with photography like that. It's just a matter of you could take dozens of photos, slightly different angles slightly different times and you get different colors and different shadows. So it ended up being worth it. I really enjoyed that. Menemsha I'm sure would have been good too. But gay head light was great. So then after sunset, we had to head back to catch the last ferry off the island that was the other it's like we should have had action movie music playing. Sadly, I wanted to get some donuts at back door donuts and oak bluffs, which literally open at 7pm and sell freshly made donuts out the back door. They're open during the day too when you go in the front, but it's not the same. You want them hot and fresh. And as we were driving by to go back to the ferry and vineyard Haven. It was a line 30-40 people deep and this is October. And they were all waiting. So I knew I wasn't going to get a doughnut from backdoor donuts. But we were hungry. So we had to get something. We had a little time when we got back to the ferry terminal in vineyard Haven. So we stopped and we grabbed something quick at Porto pizza. It's just steps from the ferry dock. And the pizza was good. But the highlight of this was you know, it's after dark. It's October. So it's cool. It's really nice. And we had a great day of photography, I got everything I needed. And I look walking around the picnic tables where we were eating is a skunk just walking around like it was no big deal, because I didn't realize at the time, but there are really no predators over there. So the skunks don't have any fear of getting eaten by a coyote or a fox. They just wander around. It's like a squirrel, but one that can spray you even though it seemed friendly, I did not engage with it did not feed it. I didn't want to get sprayed and ruin the end of the trip that way. We made the ferry and got back to the Cape. And that was the end of Martha's Vineyard trip for from October of 2014. If you're curious about some of those photos, check out in my footsteps a travelers guide to Martha's Vineyard. That was what these photos I ended up taking. That's the book it ended up being in. It's through Schiffer Publishing. Thanks to Steve for coming along and he got some great shots too. And hopefully, as we go along, I'll interview him for a third edition of dedication to the craft I'll find a fun photo trip to bring up with him in it.

The Cannibals of Boon Island Maine

Boon Island is a rocky chunk of dry land just over six and a half acres in size. Located more than seven miles off the coast of York, Maine. It's extremely isolated due to its proximity yet is quite visible due to the lighthouse that rises 133 feet above sea level that's on the island. Boon Island Lighthouse makes the island appear much closer than it is. The current beacon is from 1855 with the original beacon having been erected on the island in 1799. However, boon Island has a history stretching back much further than the lighthouse's existence. But this chapter though is far darker. This is a story of an unfortunate maritime disaster wrapped up in one of the most horrific acts known to man. Cannibalism. This story The Legend of the cannibalism that took place on boon Island began in London, the main players were aboard a 120-ton merchant vessel named Nottingham galley which was captained by John Dean. It set sail for Killybegs Ireland on September 10 1710, with a cargo of rope and then they after they added an additional cargo of butter and cheese, and they set sail for Boston on September 24 from Killybegs Ireland. This next part of the story is debated the only thing that is for sure is how it ended. One story is that the area around Killybegs Ireland was known as a hotbed for French privateers who were essentially pirates with government papers. That's all they were. And the story goes that Captain Dean sailed his ship toward the privateers in the hopes of being captured, which would allow him to collect from the ship's large insurance policy, or that Dean was maybe smuggling goods to the French. However, this didn't happen. But Dean's treasonous intentions during this time of war between England and France soured the crew towards the captain. To the point that mutiny was already on their mind before they even went across the Atlantic. Captain Dean was rumored to be a cruel and sadistic leader. One story with that goes that he beat to have his crew so badly that they were unable to work for several weeks, and that he severely cut back rations to his crew, the latter would come back to haunt the crew. When Dean sailed the Nottingham galley across the Atlantic, he actually headed towards Canada, which was held by the French which would seem to be the last place you'd want to go as a British ship captain, but yet Dean dawdled offshore for nearly a week like he was waiting for the French vessels to see him and come get him. When it appeared a French ship was coming out towards him, Dean did not retreat at all which intensified the hatred of his crew towards him. Luckily, it turned out to be a British galley coming out to them. But still, the optics for Dean were terrible in the eyes of his crew. Things came to a head on December 10 1710, the Nottingham galley was caught in a storm while traveling through the Gulf of Maine. It was so bad that the ship pulled down at sails and left it to chance, and though they could see land, it was far off. What made it worse was that Captain Dean had taken a different course which led the ship closer to shore. Later on reports from the crew said if they had stayed on the right course, they would have arrived safely in Boston. On that night of December 10, the tensions boiled over the crew questioned Captain Dean's poor decisions, to which Dean pulled out his pistol and threatened everyone. And it was apparent that Dean cared more about his authority than actually protecting his crew. Not too long after these altercations. The ship crashed into rocky boon Island early on December 11. And that splintered the vessel, the crew valiantly chopped down the Nottingham galleys mast and use it is a guide to crawl up to higher ground on the island. Even today, during high storm surges. It's possible for the waves to crash over the entirety of boon island, so it's unknown just how much room for error the crew had, when huddling on top of the island waiting for the storm to pass. Even though they made it through the night. They were in big trouble. They had no coats, no food and nothing to make a fire although they eventually were able to make a makeshift tent. small bits of food from the ship floated ashore in the next few days, as well as the men they were able to find muscles to eat. But the bad luck continued. The ship's cook died in the second night on the island. A makeshift boat that was made immediately crashed and sunk 2 crewmen made a raft and sailed to the mainland, and one was never seen again while the others body washed back up on the island. Although they could see Portsmouth harbor in New Hampshire, there was nothing they could do to signal boats that were passing by. So after several more days passed, a decision had to be made the cold at night killed another crewman and this was the tipping point. The decision was made among the crew to use the dead man's body for food. And at first, some refused to eat their fallen comrade but eventually, they all did what they had to do to survive. To this day, the decision to resort to cannibalism on boon Island is debated. The crew blamed Captain Dean while Dean blamed the crew, no matter who was to blame. It was dean who had training as a butcher who did the cutting. It wasn't until New Year's Day 1711 When a body washed ashore in New York, Maine, and it was found by Lewis Bain, he surmised that there could have been a shipwreck out on boon island so he asked fishermen John Stover to go investigate and Stover found the survivors. Captain Dean and seven others swarmed Stover upon his arrival. They were all stick thin with thick beards and suffering from frostbite. It took three days until January 4 for them to get the entire crew off the island because of more stormy weather. The one thing they did when Stover was there before he left. They asked him to build a fire on the island and they use that fire to cook the rest of the crewmen that they had been eating, which is just like before you leave to go back to shore make us a fire so we can keep eating the sky. And of course once they were all rescued, Captain Dean painted himself in the best light while the crew had their story published as a pamphlet and handed out at coffee houses in London, and it stated that Dean was a traitor, a brutal coward he had caused the shipwreck and worst of all, he had been the one to suggest cannibalism. Whether or not this is the entire truth and who knows that usually lies in between. Dean's reputation was ruined and it ran him out of London. He tried rebuilding his reputation by becoming commander of a Russian ship, and it was working until he captured two Swedish vessels and subsequently turned them over to Britain. So he was accused of taking bribes and was demoted after being court-martialed. This overtime made the crew of the Nottingham galleys version of the boon Island story seem more realistic. But no matter what Captain Dean still ended up coming out looking pretty well because he retired in comfort after marrying a wealthy woman. Whichever version of events are seen as the truth or lost to history as it's been now over 300 years. The only things for sure are the Nottingham galleys tragic shipwreck on boon Island and the horrific events that followed, which allowed some of the crew to make it off the island alive.

Sponsor: Wear Your Wish

The time has come. It is July it is time for the summer relaunch of Wear your wish and Wear your wishes.com I am extremely excited to share with you all of the new things that are now coming from Katie marks the owner and all of the hard work she put in. This is the second launch because their first launch was so successful that she ran out of all her products, which I have said is a great problem to have, in addition to the clothing that you've seen before with the logos on it when you've checked out the site now we've got a lot of bracelets, awesome bracelets, poor shoes, mermaid bracelets, crystals. There's a beautiful shamrock one that is dedicated to our grandfather Sully John Sullivan, there are beautiful necklaces with intentions on them to get your own vibe, your own feel. There are rainbow bracelets. There's something for everyone for every vibe for every feeling where your wish has it. Go to the website Wear your wishes.com Find them on Instagram and wear your wish. I've been waiting for the relaunch so that I can start sharing all of this with you again. And we can try to sell out everything again. Sorry Kate, I want it to be so successful that you've got to do a third relaunch. So visit where your wish at Wear your wishes.com and see all of the new clothing, accessories, and apparel that are now available for the summer relaunch.

This Week In History

It's time now again for this week in history. And this week. It is a celebration of Independence Day, the Fourth of July. So let's dive into it. This week in history 236 years ago, on July 4 1785, Bristol Rhode Island holds the very first Fourth of July celebration. It's hard to imagine that there once was a time that there weren't tons of Fourth of July parades and fireworks and celebrations but obviously there was a time so the annual Bristol Fourth of July celebration, as I said began in 1785. When Reverend Henry white of the First Congregational Church and a veteran of the Revolutionary War conducted the first patriotic exercises, these patriotic exercises weren't considered a parade. So it's not known exactly when the actual first parade started. But it's thought to be that it evolved from the procession of the community members walking to patriotic exercises, the parade, military, civic and Firemen's parades. They're all believed to have started in the early 1800s. In Bristol, Rhode Island. Reverend white himself was the patriotic speaker at the patriotic exercises for over 40 years as he being a veteran. It was meant to be for honoring and celebrating all that the Revolutionary War veterans had done to establish the new nation. In Bristol. Their celebration starts all the way back on June 14 on Flag Day and carries straight through Fourth of July. And now it's everywhere. Every town, it seems in America has its own Fourth of July celebration with the military and patriotic and civic leaders and floats. And then it goes on to where you've got the fireworks at night, which now they just expand to where they're almost every day when people do it on their own. But 236 years ago this week, Bristol Rhode Island held the very first Fourth of July celebration. 

Our Time Capsule this week is also July 4 centric, we're going back to July 4 1976, which was America's bicentennial. The number one song was afternoon delight by the Starland vocal band. Younger people might remember that from Anchorman. It was off of the Starland vocal bands album of the same name. Starland vocal band received three Grammy Award nominations and was easily their biggest hit, and they couldn't replicate it and they were broken up by 1981. The number one movie was the omen. It starred Gregory Peck and Lee Remmick and centers around a child named Damien Who is the Antichrist. It was a huge hit and made more than $60 million domestically on a budget of just under $3 million. It also spawned three sequels with the final one omen for being released in 1991. The number one TV show was mash. It was a comedy-drama war show based on the Korean War. Mash stood for Mobile Army surgical hospital, and the show was a massive hit one of the biggest shows ever. It ran for 11 seasons, and 256 episodes with the finale airing on February 28 1983. The show had 125 million viewers. And if you were looking to celebrate on the Bicentennial, and it was a hot day and you wanted something cool, you could get a 12-pack of bomb pops. Those were the missile-shaped red, white and blue popsicles that were I think they're still around. But you could get a 12-pack for 69 cents, or about $3.26. Now, that wraps up another time capsule that wraps up this week in history. And now it's time to dive into another top five list.

Top 5 1980s Product Mascots

This top five list is guaranteed to bring you some great flashbacks of the 1980s. Assuming that you grew up then I decided for this one to do my picks for the top five TV product mascots from the 1980s. The only thing here is I'm excluding serial ones, because that's going to get its own list. So for this list, I was looking at those commercial mascots that were huge in the 80s. They don't have to have debuted in the 80s. But they have to have been a huge part of that decade. Before we start. Honorable Mentions go to the California Raisins, the Noid from Domino's Pizza who actually is just starting to make a comeback now, Geoffrey the giraffe from Toys R Us when he was a big giant mascot stuffed with a huge head and spuds Mackenzie, who was the bull terrier mascot for Bud Light, top 80s TV product mascots number one Poppin fresh aka the Pillsbury Doughboy. He would come out in the commercials when the family would be making either you know, crescent rolls or they'd be making pie crusts and he would just show up. He was literally was like five inches tall with a chef's hat on. He looked like a little white pile of dough, and he had a high-pitched voice and big round blue dots for eyes. And of course if you poked his stomach, he would make that laugh noise. And at the end of a lot of the commercials, they have that Ooh, Oh, Poppin fresh dough, and then you poke his stomach. Number two, snuggle, snuggle the bear from the snuggle fabric softener, another one in the 80s. It would just come floating in sometimes on a towel like it was a parachute. And it would rave about the different fragrances of the fabric softener and how great it was. Snuggle was a little like a light brown bear with curly fur. Ironically, I think snuggle is just starting to come back. Now there's a commercial with a snuggle bear in it. But it's doing dances for Tik Tok. So I mean, again, it's made new for the 21st century. Number three, the Hamburger Helper helping hand. This one you might remember you might not it was like a white glove with a face on it. And he was like sort of claymation when he started in the late 70s, early 80s That I remember. And sometimes he would sing about how Hamburger Helper makes a great meal. It was the same where the mother would be wondering what to make her family for dinner and he would just show up this white glove would walk out and start talking to her about Hamburger Helper. Then they show her making it and then he would just sing about it and leave that one I'm pretty sure isn't still around. I don't even see commercials for Hamburger Helper anymore, but I know they still make it. Number four Chester Cheetah from Cheetos, who was a cartoon cheetah back in the day. He was originally voiced by Joel Murray. And he was like a slacker cool cheetah, he would say things like It's not easy being cheesy. And Cheetos were the cheese that goes crunch and he'd get smashed like trying to get them from kids or teenagers. Later on. He became computer animated and he had a British accent that wasn't quite as good, the original still the best. And number five, Fred the Dunkin Donuts Baker, this may be a little bit off the beaten path for a lot of you. But back in the 1980s there was this kind of heavy middle-aged man with a dark mustache. And he would always say time to make the donuts. It was like he was getting up at 5am to go out the door to make Dunkin Donuts. This was back before Dunkin was everywhere. It's way overcrowded. There's a place in Dennis that I could go to right now. And from standing there, I could see three Dunkin Donuts. So that's when you know there are too many of them. But in the 1980s it was still a novel thing. He was played by Michael Vail, and was their featured mascot for 15 years until he retired in 1997. He did 1300 commercials in the time that he worked for Dunkin. And you'll definitely remember if you're from that generation, you can see it in your head now with him saying time to make the donuts or even the one where he's leaving. And then he's also coming in the door and he's face to face with himself saying I already made the donuts. But that's my top five. As I said these don't go in any particular order. I just figure it's enough talking points just with the five I have let alone putting them in a particular order. Go on YouTube, and you can find commercials of all of these mascots and get some flashbacks. Or if you're younger and you're listening and you go look you can shake your head at some of the stuff that we as children of the 80s found amusing. Pop and fresh snuggle the Hamburger Helper Helping Hand Chester Cheetah and Fred the Dunkin Donuts Baker. Those are my top 519 80s TV product mascots minus cereals. What were yours? Let me know what you think. Do you agree? Do you disagree? shoot me a message and let me know. And I'll be back with another top five next week.

Back In the Day: Old School Music Stores

Today, whenever you want to get music, you want a new song, a new album or an old album. It's as simple as going on to iTunes and clicking a button and downloading the song through your computer. You don't even have to do that you can go to Pandora, Spotify and make your own playlist and just have the songs to stream. That has not always been the case. Back in the day, you actually had to go to a physical music store, record store, tape Store and search for what they had. And sometimes you couldn't even hear the songs on an album you had to know just based on what you heard on the radio and just hope that the whole album was good. So let's go back in the day to some of those classic music stores that mostly no longer exist, depending on who you believe the very first record store either opened in the town of Valetta and Malta in 1885. And it was a place is called D'Amato records, or it was spillers records founded in 1894, in Cardiff, Wales. But this isn't a history segment about the history of record stores. I'm looking more back at the ones that I remember as a kid to see if they bring flashbacks to you children of the 80s. It can be the 70s to 90s. They were still around. Then, when I was putting this list together for the podcast, the first place I thought of was strawberries. And that was a New England based record and tape store that was run by a man named Maurice Levy. We had one in Hyannis in what is now the staples Plaza right by the airport Rotary. And it had a nice cursive logo and the strawberry with it. And I mean, it was like any other one you would expect when you went to these places, records and tapes, big album cover posters on the wall, some kind of music playing they had their own playlist. The interesting thing that I didn't know until researching this, which is wild is that Morris Levy, he was the owner of Manhattan's Birdland jazz club, and also roulette records. Now, why is that interesting? Well, it's not. But in 1988, levy was convicted of extortion in federal court with the FBI claiming he had mob ties, strawberries closed down in 1996. So it wasn't I mean, it was several years after levy went to jail. But still, the company went under not too long after Cape quarters of the 80s. You might remember from the Cape Cod Mall. Do you remember when we had record town and tape world, one at either end of the mall, they're basically the same exact store just with different names. And they had that blocky lettering from the 80s for the logo. Record town opened in 1973 and tape world in 1979. But they were all the same company. They were run by Trans World Entertainment, which later became Caspian. And as a kid in high school in the early to mid 90s. It was funny to think that you could go from record town to tape world and find a better deal. I guess I should have known at the time that they were the same company with the exact same stuff. So that's a pretty smooth deal. Especially I don't know if it was like that in other malls across the country. But to have two stores run by the same people, you're splitting your audience, but yet you're not because all the monies go into the same place. And again, you'd have all the albums, all the tapes, and all the later on CDs, they be in alphabetical order. The tape sometimes would be they'd have the weird plastic case, the big rectangle case with the tape kind of wedged into the top. It's crazy to think how expensive cassettes were to considering I mean, later on, they were really cheap as CDs got popular back in the day, tapes were as expensive as CDs were later. And of course, you'd get sometimes they will get stuck in the tape player and the tape will come flying out and you'd have to get the pencil and twist it back in. Or it will get eaten and ruined. And then it's like well, what do you do in the mid 90s? Others of you might remember the coconuts music store on Cape Cod again, we had these were all in Hyannis. That's interesting. This one was in what was the Kmart Plaza that's soon going to be changing. And they were all the same when you're talking about strawberries record town tape world coconuts, Sam Goody, Tower Records, all the same. The prices, there was really no difference. It was just a different coat of paint on the same building. And the interesting thing when doing research for this is that ended up being very, very true. Because record town, tape world, strawberries, and coconuts, all ended up being bought out by Trans World Entertainment and all turned into FYE stores for your entertainment. And we ended up with one in the Cape Cod Mall. But by the turn of the 21st century, you basically merged four different companies into one under the same banner. FYE though they're starting to fade away too. As of 2019. There were 206 FYE stores left in the country. And sure you can still listen to music at Barnes and Noble. They actually have headphones where you can play music and locally on Cape Cod. We've still got Spinnaker records, which is a nice throwback. That's on Main Street in Hyannis. They've been around forever. They actually do have deals and they were the ones that always had the import CDs from Japan that had extra Hidden Tracks. I spent so much money buying unreleased Nirvana CDs and they're spending $20-30 for a Japanese import that had one or two hidden songs on it. One final one that I don't know if they're still going strong, but they're still going and that's Newbury Comics. They were opened in Boston in 1978. And they were kind of they weren't a grunge store, but they had that sort of anti-Music Store, sort of feel to it. I don't want to say it was like a skateboard store, but they had comic books, naturally, tons of them. And the different T shirts, that would be indie bands and metal bands and ones you wouldn't normally see they'd have unique toys, like those bobblehead dolls, but back when they weren't everywhere. Before moving to the Cape Cod Mall. They were in the festival mall, which was where well Toys R Us used to be there. And now it's Shaw's vitamin shop, things like that. It's funny how things change so fast. Maybe as vinyl albums become more in chic again, that retro is kind of new, maybe these types of stores will start to thrive again. But it feels like long ago we're talking 20 plus years, the times he used to go and buy CDs, DVDs, audio cassettes, vinyl albums, get money for your allowance, and go buy a cassette single of a song you liked or a CD single at one of these places. Did you ever go to record town or tape world or strawberries or coconuts? Like I said they were all basically the same inside just a slightly different setup slightly different color scheme. And I'm sure kids today are like, Oh, you had to go to the store and get music. But it was different back then. That was just part of life. Just like being a mall rat. Kids probably look at that now. Like you had to go shopping in a store and you hung out there. But it was just different in the 80s and 90s. Did I miss any famous record tape CD music stores that you remember, let me know shoot me a message of your memories of going back in the day shopping at these old-school record stores.

Closing

That's going to wrap up episode 28 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for listening to any of these episodes. Whether you're out for a walk, whether you're sitting on the beach right now in the sun, or you're making dinner and you've got the song in the background, I really appreciate any of you that take the time to listen to my creation, and to share it and to get more eyes and ears on it. Because that's the best way to grow this audience is to have you the people who actually enjoy it and listen, tell others to listen. New England travel in history, lifestyle 80s retro, all that good stuff. It's something for everyone. Check out my website, Christopher setterlund.com. created and run by one of my oldest friends Barry Menard, a great graphic designer from Rhode Island. I was lucky enough a couple of weeks back to get to hang out with him and his whole family for the first time and a couple of years since before COVID. I really appreciated that we go back over 35 years. So check out my site and know that his fingerprints are all over that. become a subscriber on YouTube. And check out I do 4k New England videos which are little travel snippets all around New England in 4k HD. So it's like you're there. I also do segments that are based on the podcast. I've done the top five countdown before I do the road trip ones with photos of my own to kind of flesh out what I do here. Give some visuals to the audio. Find me on Twitter, Chris Setterlund. Instagram, Christopher Setterlund, would be the same but on Twitter, I can't fit my full name. Like I said at the top of the podcast, check out my live streams Friday nights at eight without a map on Instagram. You can also find Book number six iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod, available through the history press through amazon.com If you choose to go there, if you're on Cape Cod or southeastern Massachusetts, it's in most of the local bookstores as well. I hope you enjoy it if you check it out. And hopefully soon enough, I'll be able to share more details about the two other books that I'm working on. It's like he got to get the contract in hand and make it official before you start sharing your plans because plans can always change. If you want to buy me a coffee you can go to buy me a coffee.com and find in my footsteps. Any donation I use towards advertising for the podcast. I'm just trying to get more and more eyes on it. It's getting there. But you know you gotta be patient. Unless you're a huge name. You're not going to have a huge audience unless you strike lightning in a bottle. I've said it before on many of the live streams that any of you out there, you can do a podcast. If you have passion, if you have a topic that you like to speak about, all you need is a microphone. That's all I got. I'm looking right at it now Samsung cue to you microphone, and you can make your own podcast. Always follow your passions and try your hardest to do what you love for work, then work doesn't seem like it's quite so bad. I'm almost there, where I've almost got everything in line. But I've said before, I'm not living my dream life, but I'm living in the suburbs of my dream life right now. So I'm almost in the city. Put your mental health first. Also, mental health is so important when dealing with a crazy world like we're dealing with, you know, whatever the new normal is or will be. And in your own life. Remember, whatever changes you're going through or are coming up, they're leading you to something better. And any opportunity that you have coming towards you. You've earned it and you deserve it. Just remember that positive affirmation. Tune in next week for episode 29 will be deep into the heat of summer. And remember in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path. And enjoy every moment you can on this journey because you never know what tomorrow brings. You never know when things could change better or worse. So just enjoy every moment you can. And I'll talk to you all again next week. Have a great Fourth of July weekend. Have a great every day. Talk to you again soon.