Episode 31: 2,100-Mile Road Trip Overview; MTV Debuts; Kevin McHale Basketball Camp; My Top 5 Concerts I've Seen; Hudson, NY(8-5-2021)

Episode 31 begins with an overview of my amazing 2019 Road Trip.  Spanning 2,100-miles, 6 days, and 11 states, it was chock full of incredible sites I had always wanted to see.  In this episode I explain why I went, how I pulled off so many miles in such a short time, and preview some of the places I saw.
We begin the journey with a trip to Hudson, New York.  Seen as one of the best small towns in America it is home to art and culture, fabulous water views, and my favorite, a lighthouse.  I also share my little side track in the town of Saugerties that was part of that day.
40 years ago this week entertainment was changed with the debut of MTV.  What did it mean? How did it affect music and entertainment as a whole?  Find out on This Week In History complete with a Time Capsule from Day One of MTV.
Growing up I had always wanted to be a basketball player.  That may have never happened, but for a week in 2 consecutive summers I got to pretend as I attended the Kevin McHale Basketball Camp.  I go Back In the Day and share some of the famous athletes I met, some of the tips from the legendary former Celtic himself, and how basketball camp was a fallback plan for something much different.
There is also a brand new Top 5 where I list the best concerts I ever attended!
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
• In My Footsteps: Hudson, New York
• Visit Hudson, NY
• Bobby Byrne's Pub
• Christopher Setterlund's YouTube Channel
• In My Footsteps Podcast Blog
• Christopher Setterlund.com

Listen to Episode 30 here.

Transcript

Intro

Hello, world. Welcome into Episode 31 of the in my footsteps podcast. I am your host, Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This week, we've got an exciting show going on. I'm going to dive into Finally, my big road trip from 2019 2100 miles in six days. I'll talk about why I did it and what it meant. And we'll also dive into the first spot I'm going to share outside of New England, the small town of Hudson, New York. I'll take you back in the day to my two summers that I spent at the Kevin McHale basketball camp and ocean edge on Cape Cod. We're going to have a new top five list it's going to be my top five concerts I've ever been to. We've got a new this week in history and a time capsule all tied in around the 40th anniversary of the debut of MTV back in 1981. All of that and more coming up right now on episode 31 of the in my footsteps podcast.

Well, it's August. It's the dog days of summer. I hope everyone has had a great summer out there trying to enjoy the weather outside. Cape Cod has been more packed than usual down here. So it's wild traffic, it's out of control. I've reached the point where Yeah, I love summer. But I also like I've always said I love fall more, because you get a lot of the same weather at the beginning, but there are far fewer people. So I took a break last week after episode 30 About my old friend Matt Medeiros and a celebration of his life. I wanted to make sure that I thank everyone who made that my most downloaded episode in its first week, I was really thrilled because that episode meant a lot to me. So to know that it resonated so much with a lot of you that really made it worthwhile. But because I skipped last week, I missed my twin sisters birthdays on July 30. So I wanted to make sure that I gave them a shout even though it's now a few days late. So I wanted to wish happy birthday to Lindsay and Ashley. And I've already seen you and given you your presence by now but you deserve a podcast shout out for your birthdays. I'm getting excited. Because next week, I have actually to in-person book events. I mean, unless something goes wrong, it can always go wrong, I guess. But I finally have actual in person events. I've done three zoom events for my books. And those have been fun. But they're different. Because you don't get the interaction with the people as instantaneously. Because on Zoom, they'll have their microphones muted and their cameras off. And I just have a presentation on the screen. So it's a little bit different. These events one is at the Eldridge library and Chatham and the other is at the app Tux at trading post and born. And like I say, if you're interested in the books, my newest book, iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod, you can get it through the history press. You can always get it through Amazon if you want. If you're on the cape. It's at all of the major bookstores. But while you're here, let's check out episode 31 of the podcast. I always say it's going to be exciting and a fun episode. Because why would I? Why would I say this episode's not as good as others? Because then why would you listen. But I'm excited to start talking about my big road trip from 2019. I've teased it many times, especially on the live streams without a map. Those are Fridays at 8pm on Instagram. I'm constantly teasing the road trip there and I figured why not jump into it and share what I went through. So that's what we're going to do right now. I'm going to start off here with kind of the overview of the trip where I went, why I went there. And we'll get a little more specific when I jump into Hudson, New York. So here we go right now road trip 2019 The overview on episode 31 of the in my footsteps podcast. 

2019 Road Trip Overview

I think most people love travel and road trips. So me saying Oh, I love traveling and I love doing road trips. It's not anything special. I think everyone kind of likes that in one form or another. But for the last Oh, almost 12 years since I started doing my in my footsteps travel blog. I've always had this desire to go and see things I've never seen and take photos and write about them and kind of share it with people and maybe entice them to go there. For me. I like that feeling of being somewhere I've never been that being said up until 2019 and this road trip I'm about to talk about. I hadn't gone really anywhere that far away. Now granted if you've listened to the podcast, you know that I lived in Las Vegas and took a bus from Vegas back to Cape Cod in 2001. I also drove from Cape Cod down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I've gone to New Orleans. I flew there for a vacation. But I've never really done a road trip where I drove to see places and then came back. Basically everywhere I went for these big long trips were to move there in my 20s my first big real road trip was in 2010. And I was lucky because my cousin Tracy and her then husband, Steve, they had a cottage on the water in owls head Maine. And I was basically able to use that as base camp and I spent five days up in Maine, I think I might have put 1000 miles on my car then just driving around Maine. That trip was centered around a lighthouse West Quoddy Head lighthouse in Lubec, Maine, which is the furthest east, you can go in the United States, it was so much fun, just being on my own, and driving to all these places. I mean, Lubec is a small town. And when you're driving on route one in Maine out towards it, there's nothing for long stretches. Once you get past the town of Mathias, there's really nothing for the next 45 minutes until you get to Lubec, which is great. I loved it. For years, I've wanted to do something similar as far as road trips go, but taking it in a different direction going south. And naturally, those who know me and you know how much I love lighthouses. The road trip from 2019 was also centered around a lighthouse. The end game for me was Cape Hatteras lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I always wanted to go and see it, it's almost 200 feet tall. And it's got black and white stripes like a barbershop pole. And it's one of those things that if you like lighthouses, you know of Cape Hatteras light, after deciding on my end game, then it was a matter of the most creative way to get down there. As far as where to stop. I had gone out to the Berkshires, in Western Massachusetts, the year before 2018, I decided to head out that way. And then just keep going into New York and kind of make a circle circle all the way down to North Carolina and come back up, I had a plan in mind where I had all this vacation time saved up at the retirement home where I work. And I basically took all of it as much vacation time as I could possibly take for this trip. I didn't want to have it where I was under any sort of time constraints to get back. I wanted to see as much as I could as much as I possibly could. And boy am I glad I did, because I did this trip in the middle of November 2019. So think about it. We were what four months or a little more than four months from the hell that COVID has brought. So I got this in just under the wire, I got to see everything right before we got locked down. So at least the beginning of lockdown, it wasn't as bad because I had 1000s of photos and videos that I could actually check out and pretend that I was still on the road. In the coming weeks and probably months. I'm going to go over all these places I saw and there's so many big time memorable spots in the Eastern US that hopefully you all have either seen or will go to see if you can in total I got to go through 11 states. So obviously Massachusetts I live in, but I went through New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Some of the big places that I saw during this trip. It was awesome. I mean, we're going to talk about Hudson, New York coming up next, but I went through Pennsylvania, I went to Scranton. And I got to see all of the places from the office which people that know me know, that's one of my favorite shows of all time to getting to see all those places. I went to Gettysburg. I went to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, that's another Civil War era place. I love that era of history. I actually spent a couple of days out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina going to Roanoke for The Last Colony and the Wright Brothers First Flight Memorial Park, Outer Banks for people that haven't been there. If you've been to Cape Cod, it's very similar. And I could see myself living there easily. The big thing that I remember with this trip was basically seeing as much as I could see, like I've said 2100 miles of driving in six days. It doesn't lend itself to allowing things to breathe. So basically when I saw, let's say Gettysburg, I didn't have as much time to think about it or enjoy it after the fact. I took a lot of photos, and a lot of videos and it was more or less. Get all the pictures and videos you can and enjoy it later. Just see as much as you can. It's weird. It was almost like I had the This underlying drive to see all of this stuff like there was some pressure. And it's interesting that COVID came only a few months later, because I was so glad I saw all that I did. I'm really excited to finally get to talk about all these places and share them with you because I love talking about New England. And that's my wheelhouse, because I live here, and I've grown up here. But there was something different about this big road trip, it had like a movie feel to it. For me, some of the places I stayed in hotels were awesome, some were not awesome. There were times where I couldn't figure out where the hell I was. But it's all about experiencing things. Maybe if you you might not enjoy travel or road trips, you may have something else that you like, that's unknown, that you experience, whether it's you know, eating different foods, experiencing different cultures, you don't have to go really, you can experience that wherever you're at. And naturally now with the world, hopefully soon getting to be completely back to normal, this delta variant with COVID is really screwing things up. And I just wish people would get vaccinated so we could get past this. But my eyes are now on the future and another road trip. And I already have yet another end game in mind. And of course, it is a lighthouse, look up Split Rock lighthouse, it's on one of the great lakes in Minnesota. It's an awesome looking lighthouse. And that's kind of my end game. From where I'm at right now. It's about 24 hours of driving. Naturally, I wouldn't drive straight through. But that's kind of the end game, I just will have to figure out other places to see along the way. And it's a pretty common fact that people that know me, I've said it so many times that if I could just do travel and road trips just as a career and make money off of it. I would, I would love to take this podcast on the road, and just go to different random places and talk about it and interview people. You never know someday that might happen. But right now, this is just the overview of the 2019 road trip. What I saw why I did it. So let's jump into the first place that I saw outside of New England. And I chose this because of its recognition as one of the best small towns in the country, at least by some you know, I don't know what the metrics are for that. But that made it a good place to stop and that is the town of Hudson, New York. So I'm going to take you on a road trip they're coming up now.

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Road Trip: Hudson, NY

Hudson, New York is located just over 120 miles north of New York City, and it's a charming small town considered to be upstate New York's downtown that was part of why I chose it as my first outside New England stop on my 2019 road trip. It's named for explore Henry Hudson, and it began as a whaling town due to the British blockades of important American ports leading up to the Revolutionary War. And at one point Hudson was actually the 24th largest city in the United States in 1790. It is not anymore as of 2017, its population was 6239. The first place I went and checked out when I got to Hudson was promenade Hill Park. And that's on Warren Street. It's high up above, and it overlooks the Hudson River. There's a statue of St. Winifred there. And I took some awesome photos of the statue, with the mountains behind it, and the lighthouse out on the river, but that we'll get to in a minute. There is definitely the small town charm, and feel of Hudson, just like they said, when I was reading about it before I went, I could feel it there. Naturally, when you're visiting a place that you've never been, it's kind of hit or miss, I look at maps and find things that I might be interested in. You may have different ways that you do it. But my idea was, there was a lighthouse there, there's a river there. So there's gotta be some cool views on the water. After checking out promenade Hill Park and walking around a little bit there, I went down to Henry Hudson riverfront park that's on Water Street, and it's naturally it's right at water level. There's a pretty cool gazebo there. And the views of the mountains is incredible. It kind of ties everything together where they look like they're far off in the distance. And they are but yet they feel closer. I don't know if that makes sense. As I said before, there was a lighthouse out on the Hudson River that drew my attention. That's the Hudson Athens lighthouse, which is Hudson is on one side of the river, the town of Athens, New York is on the other side. This lighthouse, it looks like a like an actual regular home like a square red brick home with a little lighthouse sticking out of the top. It was built originally in 1874. To help guide vessels around the middle ground flats of the Hudson River from the Henry Hudson Riverfront Park, you couldn't get as close up of a shot of the lighthouse as I would prefer, it became natural for me to try to figure out a way to get closer to the lighthouse. So I drove down the road a little ways. And there was this off the beaten path, kind of grassy overgrown parking lot, right at the railroad tracks. So here I am, I've never been to this place before. But I'm going to park where it looks like sketchy things go down and take a walk down the railroad tracks where I've never been, and God only knows what's down there. But I needed a photo of this lighthouse. My buddy Steve, you're listening, you know, dedication to the craft, I wanted a better shot of that lighthouse. And I was not thinking about my own safety. From where I parked, it was less than 2000 feet that I had to walk down the tracks. And I was just walking and looking at the lighthouse to see if I could get straight on. And I found a place to walk to get me closer to the actual river. So I got some good photos. Interestingly enough, when I was taking photos of the lighthouse from behind, I could hear the sound of a train coming. So basically, I mean the railroad tracks were live. And obviously I wouldn't have stood on the tracks if the train came. But it was fitting that there I am walking the tracks and the train was on its way from somewhere. I didn't mind though. I was far off the tracks and I got the photos that I wanted of the lighthouse so it was all good. Like I said in the overview section earlier in the podcast about doing this road trip, I didn't have time to let everything breathe. I wanted to see as much as I could possibly see in the six days I had. Despite getting these photos and taking a few minutes to soak in the downtown area of Hudson in the Hudson River I had to keep moving. The next spot on my list of places to see was a few miles south of the downtown area of Hudson in a place called the Olana Historic Site, which is a mansion. Not everyone may like light houses but this property I think everyone would love for one reason or another. The property is 250 acres and the mansion the Olana mansion was built in 1872 and was once home to 19th century landscape painter Frederic Edwin church. I went there, as we say in photography, that golden hour of sunset, where you get within basically an hour of sunset and everything gets kind of that orangey haze to it. At its highest elevation there. The property is 495 feet above sea level. So the views are incredible. You drive up and park and then you walk up to the mansion, which is orangey red, yellow kind of color. Look up, Olana, and you'll see the colors of it because the sunset just enhanced it. From there from standing in front of the mansion. The views of the Hudson River Valley, the nearby Rip Van Winkle bridge and the surrounding Catskill Mountains. It's incredible. Like that was something that I wish I had more time for. Although I did soak in a lot of it there. Check out city of hudson.org. To get a lot more info about what the actual Hudson New York has to offer, and Olana.org to give you a better view of the Olana historic site and the mansion, and you'll get to see the photos that I can't do justice by talking about. I actually also have a video on my YouTube page. If you go find in my footsteps Hudson, New York, you'll see that I've got videos for all these places I talked about. So you'll be able to go and check them out after listening to the podcast. And there's so much more to see than what I have described. I'm describing places I went to, and you can see where my time was limited. But you can go to the home of artists Thomas Cole, who was the founder of the Hudson River School of American painting. There's lots of art and shopping on Warren Street. There's places to eat like camellia restaurant, a Baba Louise Hudson's goddess reputation is distinction is one of the best small towns in America for a reason. And a little funny story to end this. When I was done at Alana, it was the sun was setting or had just set. So my goal was to get to Scranton, Pennsylvania, as kind of base camp, and I crossed over the Rip Van Winkle bridge that's right near Olana, and I'm heading south towards Scranton, and it's starting to get dark. I mean, it's after sunset now. And about 30 miles south of Olana is the town of Saugerties and they're three times as big as Hudson. So if Hudson is a small town, Saugerties is a less small town, but I'm driving along Route Nine West and I see a sign for Saugerties lighthouse, and I'm talking it's a half hour after sunset. And in my mind, I'm like oh man, another cool lighthouse. And I decided you know, I'm probably never going to be here again. So why not? Saugerties Lighthouse sits at the end of this point at the Ruth Reynolds glint nature preserve. I didn't know that I drove down, there's a parking lot I didn't realize it was might have been a half mile to walk out to actually get to the lighthouse. And by this time it was twilight already. And I said you know I'm already here. I'm going. So I walked out there and I got a lot of good photos, some really cool purpley yellow sunsets with the lighthouse. But walking back it was pitch black. I didn't have a flashlight. I didn't know where I was. Who knows what could have been out there. It was another lighthouse that looked like a regular brick building. I think there might even be a bed and breakfast inside. But I was standing out there and there was nobody around and it was I mean it was mid November in upstate New York so it wasn't warm. But it was just a really nice, peaceful, relaxing, little break. And Saugerties is a place I might go back to and check out at some point because it felt that had a cool vibe to it. And I did make it to Scranton, but I'll talk about that in the next podcast episode. But for those of you keeping track, my first day that started from Cape Cod, and ended up in Scranton, if you were doing that on Google Maps, it's a total of about six and a half hours of driving and 385 miles and that doesn't take into account my little off shoot at Saugerties or any other places that I might have gone. This was just town to town. So there you go, Hudson, New York. I'll be back next time for another road trip with a little taste of the office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That one's going to be a fun one to.

This Week In History

This week in history takes us back to what was one of the most important days in music history television history. That was 40 years ago this week, August 1 1981, MTV Music Television makes its debut. For those of the younger generation I'm saying if you're in your 20s and younger and you're listening to this, you may not realize that MTV used to be all music, music television was actually music and not garbage reality shows like it is now which is just a joke. But it was at one point a hugely influential source of music entertainment pop culture across America and the world. And it debuted on August 1 1981. The first video ever was Video Killed the Radio Star by a band called The Buggles. I remember on Cape Cod I don't know when I first saw MTV, it might have been 8485 When we got cable, but it was huge. It was all music videos. They had VJs video jockeys the same as DJs like on the radio, and it became huge for the promotion for music. That's where music videos became huge. And the people of the 80s that grew up in the 80s. Think of the artists that became huge because of their videos and their airplay on MTV. Michael Jackson is top of the list. And then right with Him is Madonna and Prince, Duran Duran, got Hall and Oates became huge because of their videos. The original talent the original VJs on MTV included Martha Quinn, Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman, JJ Jackson and Nina Blackwood. And back then, especially in the early to mid 80s, it was way more stripped down, where they were just looked like they were sitting in a living room, at least with a brick wall, and just showing videos all day. And world premiere music videos became events, especially Michael Jackson in his Thriller video. Oh my God, but they became must-see events, these new videos in the late 90s to the turn of the 21st century, that's when it became all reality shows and people my age tuned out because Why watch MTV Music, television if there's no music, and maybe I'm the old man yelling at clouds, but I just think it's terrible. Now it's just it's a shame to remember what it used to be and to see MTV how it is now. But 40 years ago this week, one of the most influential moments in music history took place when MTV debuted with Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles. And for the time capsule, this week, we're going to stick with the same date. So basically, if you saw the debut of MTV, this is what was going on back then in the areas of entertainment surrounding it. So August 1 1981, the number one song was Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield. It was number one for two weeks and that was Rick Springfield, easily his biggest hit. Despite being basically a one hit wonder from the early 80s. Don't cry for Rick Springfield though. He was also Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital and an overall teen heartthrob for most of the 1980s so he did alright. The number one movie was Tarzan, the ape-man. It starred Bo Derek Myles O'Keefe O'Keeffe, Richard Harris and John Philip law. It was loosely based on the 1912 book Tarzan of the Apes, but it's told from Jane's perspective. For those of you that don't know the Tarzan and Jane story, he's basically a man raised by apes. It made over $36 million on a budget of just over 6 million so it did well domestically with the box office. However, it was nominated for many Worst Picture Awards, the Razzies Worst Picture worst director, worst actor, Worst Actress, so it's up to you if you want to see it. But out of the 12 Worst Picture and such awards, they were nominated for not only one but two. That means 10 of them, they didn't win. I don't know if that makes it better. The number one TV show was the Jeffersons. This was a spin-off from all in the family. With George Jefferson, starring Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford, Marla Gibbs, and others. The show lasted 11 seasons after spinning off from all in the family 253 episodes, and the classic song moving on up, it's a classic show, you've got to check it out. It debuted in 1975, and went all the way through to 1985. I know you can hear that theme song in your head, sorry for putting the ear warm in there. And if you're going back to August 1 1981, to see MTV debut, the cost of cable TV, a monthly subscription, at least on Cape Cod through Cape Cod Cable Vision was $8.90 a month. And that was for 12 channels on Cape Cod Cable Vision. And I know it's not quite apples to apples, but adjusted for inflation, that would make a cable subscription currently $26.36. And I know there are so many more channels now. But just to show you how outrageous the price of cable has gotten. The average cable bill in America in 2020 was $217.42 Almost 10 times what inflation would give you. But like I said, you're getting HD, you're getting a couple of 100 channels. So I know it's not apples to apples, but I think there's a reason why a lot of people are cutting the cord when it comes to cable TV. And that'll wrap up this week in history. That'll wrap up the time capsule. We'll be back with another one next week. But now the new top five list coming up with my top five concerts at I've been to in my life.

Top 5 Concerts I’ve Been To

everybody loves music. Your taste in music may be different, but everyone loves music. So this top five is going to be my top five concerts that I've seen in my life. And the funny thing is that it may be the least controversial and the most, because these are all subjective. They're the ones that I've been to. So it's a lot different than my other top five countdowns, where it's you could have your own choices, because these are the concerts that I went to. So you may not like the ones I went to. But hey, the first concert I ever went to was my senior year of high school in 1996. I had intended to go to Lollapalooza 94 and see nirvana. That was my goal for my very first concert ever, but it just didn't happen. Nirvana pulled out because Kurt Cobain's health issues were getting bad. And then I ended up not really wanting to go honorable mentions go to when I saw Pearl Jam in 2004 because it's Pearl Jam and going to see them. They're the last kings of grunge music still around so anytime you can go see them as great REM at what was great woods in 1999. Their last stop on their tour for their op album, which was their first one without original drummer Bill Berry and Foo Fighters acoustic tour 2006 which was pretty wild. It was as close as I'd ever get to see Nirvana because there was Dave Grohl, they had Pat Smear, who came on to Nirvana in 1993. And then they also performed the only Nirvana song that Kurt Cobain did not sing lead on a song called marigold. So I closed my eyes and that was about as close as I'd ever get to see Nirvana live. So those are the honorable mentions. The actual top five concerts I've been to this is in no particular order. Number one, you two in 1997. You two are legends of music. The irony is though that the one time that I went and saw them live was for the album that almost destroyed their careers, the pop album, it was like a combination. It was like dance music mixed in with rock. It was weird, because there was some songs that were good, but it was just like discotheque and the song Mofo which is actually pretty good as far as a workout song. But it was so different than anything they had done. And I guess I should have seen it coming because their Zooropa album was kind of heading that way. But here they performed all of their hits. They came out in these silver shiny suits out of this giant lemon, which was weird, and naturally, they played a lot of the songs off of the pop album, it was the PopMart tour, but still getting to see you too and have them perform a lot of their hits was great. Number two was seeing Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers in a co-headlining concert. This was also in 1999. So chili peppers were out there for their Californiacation album which was like their big comeback album. Foo Fighters were there for there is nothing left to lose was their new album. The chili peppers were great as you would expect. The foo fighters had the highlight of the night though when they were playing big me and Mentos came falling from the ceiling on Taylor Hawkins the drummer, I ended up seeing Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers twice total but not together like this. Number three was another combos show with the Dave Matthews Band and Santana in 1999. Although Santana was the opening act, this was right before the big supernatural album came out with Santana. That was the big comeback with the song smooth. I was a huge fan of Dave Matthews Band in the 90s. I kind of fell off when they did their everyday album and it got way more mainstream and streamlined. But back in the 90s they were awesome. This was in support of the Before These Crowded Streets album and the highlight for me was seeing Dave Matthews Band play all along the Watchtower the Bob Dylan song, but with Carlos Santana out there playing guitar, like the Jimi Hendrix version, that was mind-blowing and made me really appreciate what a guitar God Carlos Santana is. Number four was my original concert. AC/DC in 1996. These guys were as loud as anything you could think about hearing I had been warned about that, that the AC DC shows it was like standing next to a jet engine for three hours and it's true. I remember being back in school the next day, and it was like wearing a pair of ear muffs in school because my eardrums were just ruined from how loud Angus Young played and I wasn't a huge ac dc fan before I went to this show, but I was offered a ticket by some of my friends. So naturally, I went, and I should have known the show was going to be good when it started with a Beavis and Butthead cartoon where they were outside of the AC/DC dressing room. And then it kicked off was back in black and I was hooked right from there. That was a way to start off my concert career, Beavis and Butthead and back in black. And the number five concert that I've been to was Stone Temple Pilots in 1996 STP was another one of those grunge alternative bands that came up at that same time that I always talk about, and getting to see Scott Weiland, who was a great frontman, but getting to see him perform, although this was in support of their tiny music songs from the Vatican gift shop album. And if you hear that, compared to their first two albums, Scotland's voice is different. And so I knew something was up with them. The show was great, though. I mean, they came out, Weiland was singing through a megaphone, and they played all their hits. But little did I know that two weeks after this show, the concert tour, the rest of the tour will be canceled. And Weiland was arrested for drugs. And he basically he ended up going to jail for a few years. So I got to see one of the last shows I don't know how lucid he was during this one. But only a couple of weeks later, the tour was over and he was in jail. Those are my top five favorite concerts that I went to. This was a hard one to make decisions on. There were other shows that I went to that didn't even make the honorable mentions. I'm sure some of you like my choices as far as bands, I'm sure some of you are saying oh my god, you actually went to see Dave Matthews Band or Stone Temple Pilots are. I like what I like you like what you like, what were your favorite concerts that you went to shoot me a message and let me know what you thought of my choices, what choices you had. And I'll be back with the next episode for another top five list. Hopefully it'll be as fun and less controversial as this one probably is.

Sponsor: Bobby Byrne’s Pub

If you're looking for a great eating and drinking establishment to finish out your summer days on Cape Cod, you can't go wrong with the Bobby Burns pub, three locations on Cape Cod in Mashpee Commons Hyannis, and sandwich. They've been open since 1973. They have classic pub fare American meals daily and weekly specials created by some very talented chefs, including Chef Bruce Durham, very talented chef, you can catch him usually at the sandwich location sometimes at Mashpee. They combine great food with a great atmosphere open seven days a week, you can visit them at Bobby Byrnes.com Or check out any of their three locations to see for yourself. They've been around almost 50 years they must be doing something right. And if you stop into the sandwich or the Mashpee locations, give a shout to Chef Bruce Durham and tell them that you heard this on the in my footsteps podcast, Bobby Burns, pub, classic pub atmosphere, classic pub food and so much more. Go and check them out.

Back In the Day: Kevin McHale Camp

I mentioned in Episode 29 of the podcast about my days of having a basketball hoop on Cherry lane when I was growing up. Basketball was my favorite sport. I grew up in the 80s when the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers were the top teams dueling it out and Michael Jordan came along and set the sporting world on fire. There was nothing I wanted more than to emulate these incredible athletes. Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Charles Barkley, and so many more. And I was lucky enough for two consecutive summers in 1989 and 1990. To get to experience a little bit of what it would be like to be an NBA basketball player by attending the Kevin McHale basketball camp at the ocean edge resort Brewster. And here I'm going to share a little bit of what it was like as we go way, way back in the day. So ironically, I wasn't meant to go to Kevin McHale basketball camp. It was actually a fallback plan by my mother. So in seventh grade, way back when I was younger, I was wicked smart. So I took my SATs when I was in seventh grade, the Johns Hopkins University paid for me to take my SATs when I was 13. They wanted me to go to genius camp, and it was too expensive. And you know, I'm one of five kids and we weren't exactly rich growing up. So you know, my mother Feels bad now. But as a man in my 40s, I can see where, how are you going to afford that to send me to genius camp. And the thing is as a kid then, and as a man now, I'd much rather have gone to Kevin McHale camp than going to a camp where I was going to learn. It's like going to school again. So the hell with that ocean edge resort. You can read about it in my iconic hotels and motels book. It's on Route six A, and it's part of the Nickerson family that owned all of the property. It's just big sprawling resort. And back in 1989, it was even bigger when you're a kid, 11 years old, go into play there with hundreds of other kids. There were so many other kids that I knew from school that had gone to the same camp. So that was a lot of fun seeing some familiar faces, but then a lot that I didn't know from around the Cape and probably New England, I bet there were a lot that came from off Cape. But then meeting Kevin McHale, who will be six foot 10. So he's the biggest human I'd ever seen in real life. And you get to see him shooting free throws and dunking in the basketball. And that's another thing, seeing him on TV and then seeing him in person. It was crazy. I don't remember if it was a first or second year that I went but the team that I was on because we have like a tournament that we played where you'd learn fundamentals. But then you'd actually play games, shirts and skins and there was a lot of outdoor and indoor basketball courts. I remember one day it was rainy. So we had to go to an actual indoor gym to play. And I couldn't tell you where it is now. And we all got hooked up when we got there. We got our swag packages, we got our own basketball and a pair of the Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers. I think they're still like they've come back around in style now. They really didn't have any support or cushioning. They're kind of high tops. Can you see them in your head? They've got the star on the side. I was a big fan of the Nike Air Jordans. So getting Converse Chuck Taylors I was like, I don't know if I wore them beyond that week that I was at Kevin McHale camp. He had special guest there too Kevin McHale. He brought in friends of his interestingly, the first friend that he was supposed to have come be a part of the camp was Danny Ainge, but he ended up not coming because he got traded. He got traded that summer from the Celtics to the Sacramento Kings. But that was alright, they had shirts for sale. These oversized caricature shirts, they were big in the 80s. But there was one for Danny Ainge with the Sacramento Kings with his face like 10 times bigger than his body. There was a life-size cardboard cutout of Kevin McHale there too. And on a recent live stream, my mother told me that my sister Ashley had knocked it over, and then was running away so embarrassed, and Kevin McHale was yelling to her weight actually come back. I don't remember that. But it's a funny story to kind of stick in there. I ended up having some interactions with Kevin McHale. I think he coached everybody's team wants for one game. So there's a photo of me high-fiving him, I got a picture with him. And I was too scared to say something to him. So my mother basically had to yell to him. And then he came over and he took a picture with me, I was like up to his hip. But my favorite story of Kevin McHale has to be when I tried to get him to autograph my basketball. So the basketballs that they gave out at the camp had Kevin McHale's signature on it, but he's sitting down, and I bring the basketball to him. And he basically takes a Sharpie, and he traces over his own name. So we he signed it, but he signed it over his own real signature. And I get to meet a lot of the special guests that he had there. He had Casey Jones, who coached the Celtics when they won the title in 86. So he was a legend. I got to meet Casey Jones, and he actually autograph my basketball, unlike Kevin McHale, who traced his name, but then I also got to meet Doc Rivers, and Doc Rivers was still playing and he was still playing on the Atlanta Hawks. And he was super nice. I've always had a soft spot for Doc Rivers. So I was thrilled when he won a title with the Celtics in 2008. I got to meet the iconic voice of the Celtics, Johnny most, he did the radio broadcasts for God, probably 30 years I would think. But he was near the end of his life here. He was very old and he was in a wheelchair and I remember my mother kind of felt bad for him because he was just sitting there and no one was around him. And I didn't know who he was because I didn't ever see him. But then when I talked to him, I recognize the voice. He had this really I don't want to say raspy voice but he talked like this kind of out My voice like that, I can't really do it. But we didn't have anything for him to sign. So my mother gave him a blank check that he autographed the back of and I don't know where that ever ended up. But I basically Johnny most autographed one of my mother's blank checks. Most interestingly and probably most out of place as far as guests that I remember it Kevin McHale's camp was wrestling legend Big John Studd. He had just made his comeback in 1989. He was the one the Royal Rumble in WWF. And he was at WrestleMania. Five. So he was there and it was weird, because it's all basketball players. And then there's Big John Studd. I can only assume that there must have been a show with the melody tent around that time, because WWF would do shows at the melody tent, so I'm assuming he must have been there. I don't know how we got the favor called in to come to Kevin McHale camp, but he was there signing autographs, he was another one super huge human being. I just remember how much fun it was the entire time, even learning the fundamentals, how to dribble, how to dribble behind your back, you were taught to pretend like you were slapping yourself on the ass that would kind of bring the ball around your hips to the other side. I still remember that 30 years later, every day we'd have lunch usually under a tent outside. And most of the time there would be one of the old NBA films playing. If you're of my age, or around my age, it was either the seasons for the champions. Like I watched the 86 Celtics championship video probably a couple times. But there was the first Michael Jordan video back before he had won any titles. I remember that stuff. But I can't remember if my team the Hoosiers if we won our tournament, I'm pretty sure we didn't. I have so many photos from that time of just it'd be me and then a bunch of random people, or some people that I went to school with that I knew, but I go through these photos from Kevin McHale camp. And the irony is that there are two separate photos with this same kid given the stink face to the camera. It's funny because it's like my mother was taking pictures. And this stupid kid happened to be like, in the way, two different times. And I was going through the photos and I said wait, that's him again. stinkface boy, I should post that online on social media and see if anyone knows who he is. Ironically, after Kevin McHale camp the second year in 1990, I didn't go back to ocean edge and even see those basketball courts again until last year, riding my bike with my buddy Mike. That was like we went through ocean edge and I said oh my god, this is the basketball court. And I took pictures of the court, you know, 30 years after last stepping on it. Those prism good times though, obviously, I never became an NBA player. So Kevin McHale failed in his training of me, but I do have so many great memories of my two years of going to Kevin McHale camp. Did any of you ever go to like a sports summer camp that was held by someone famous a famous athlete. I know the Cape Cod baseball league does clinics like that on Cape Cod during the summers. But none of those players are famous yet. So you'd only know after the fact if someone went to the majors if you were in the presence of greatness. Hope you enjoyed that little trip back in the day. To my two years of experience at Kevin McHale basketball camp at Ocean edge and Brewster it was sure a great time.

Closing

That wraps up episode 31 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has been listening. I really appreciate it the month of July was my top month for downloads, which is great because it's trending upwards, I see the charts. So it's all heading upwards. It makes me happy and excited to continue doing these podcasts knowing that more and more of you are listening. And if you ever have any messages, shoot me an email Christopher setterlund@gmail.com or email me through my website, Christopher setterlund.com. I'm always interested in interacting with people that listen beyond family and friends who listen. That's why I do the live streams every Friday at 8pm. They're called without a map on Instagram. I talk about the podcast without any notes. So it's kind of it's fun because they go off the rails real quick. You can find me on Twitter. You can find me on Instagram. Check out my blog the in my footsteps podcast blog. The most recent post I put up there was about a pioneer for women in business on Cape Cod a woman named Edna Harris who ran three different successful establishments on the cape and the first half of the 20th century. If you want to see my most recent zoom events for my books, go to YouTube and find the Falmouth, Public Library, Falmouth, and community TV, I've got to zoom events up there so you can get kind of an idea of what it's like to see me live. And while you're on YouTube, subscribe to my channel. I'm trying to add more 4k New England videos. But with work as it is, it's getting harder. Hopefully, after summer, I'll have more time to go to places before the winter comes. So they still look good in the videos. I wanted to take a minute to say, Get well soon to my uncle Bob. In the time since I last recorded the podcast two weeks ago, he's been really sick in the hospital. I won't go deep into his own personal stuff, but it's been scary and touch and go, where they didn't know if he'd make it through the night. The first night he was in ICU. But he's on the road back. He's a tough sob and a good man. And he is who I strive to be as far as an uncle to my nieces and nephews, I kind of modeled myself after my uncle Bob. So I'm just wishing him all the best if he listens to this, know that I've been thinking about you. We've all been thinking about you. And we know you're going to be back to your old self in no time. This past week was a really big week for birthdays too. So in addition to my sisters, Lindsay and Ashley, my aunt Susan, one of my oldest friends from my second family, Jen Huggins, and my old friend, Tim Fisher, giving you all shout-outs for your birthdays that have passed by the time you hear this, but still know that I'm wishing you happy birthdays. Now belated, as I always say, if you enjoy the podcast, spread the word, share it, tell other people to check it out. Because that's the way this grows, is you people that enjoy it, sharing it, I can tell everyone that every episode is great. And I'm going to and I'm going to market the hell out of it. But it means more coming from independent sources. Those of you that don't have a stake in it like me, telling people to check it out. And I appreciate all of you that do that. Believe me. If you want to go a step further, you can go to buy me a coffee, find the in my footsteps podcast, and donate if you want anything that comes in I use for advertisement for the podcast. So like I always joke, it's not like you donate and then I go buy Chinese food with it. I use it for advertisements for the podcast. Tune in next week for episode 32 of the podcast where Stop me if you've heard this one before, it's going to be an awesome packed show. I'm really excited. We're going to talk about one of the most famous murder cases in the history of New England, the Lizzie Borden murder. And I'll tell you about my experience at the house. I'll share another place from my 2019 road trip we're going to talk about Scranton, Pennsylvania, I'm sure there'll be a lot of office references there because I visited a lot of those sites. I'll create more controversy with my top five favorite Boston athletes of my lifetime. I started watching in 1985. So it's from then on. So get ready to hate my pics. And I'll go back in the day to share my thoughts on collecting baseball cards back when that was a big thing. And it's not as big of a thing now, but it was fun while it lasted. And there'll be another this week in history and another time capsule and so much more. That's coming up next week on episode 32. So be there for that. And remember to take care of yourself. Take care of your mental health, that comes above all else, especially in this world we live in now. You've got to put your mental health first Do what makes you happy. And hopefully this podcast gives you a little bit of happiness and a distraction. That's what I tried to do. But remember in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Make sure to create your own path and enjoy every moment you can on this journey we call life because you just never know better to be happy and have no regrets than the other side. Thank you so so much to all of you for listening. And of course, I will talk to you again next week for episode 32 Take Care