Episode 33 begins with a classic tale of old New England folklore. Could a creeping vine predict the impending deaths of a cursed family? This is the tale of the Dummerston Vine Cemetery of Vermont.
VCR's, Rotary Phones, and more! What are the Top 5 pieces of Obsolete Technology of the last 40 years? These are the things that were huge at one point but have faded away.
At one time Cable TV was something that everyone had. They paid a high price for the privilege of access to hundreds of channels. Now however just over half of Americans have cable. More are more are cutting the cord. We go Back In the Day to the Rise and Fall of Cable TV.
Filled with cultural, natural, and industrial history the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is a state capital with small-town vibes. Take a Road Trip to find out all about what makes it a place to visit from the Capital Park, river views, family attractions, high-quality restaurants, and more!
This Week In History and the Time Capsule centers around the life and death of Elvis Presley.
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)
Listen to Episode 32 here.
Episode 33 begins with a classic tale of old New England folklore. Could a creeping vine predict the impending deaths of a cursed family? This is the tale of the Dummerston Vine Cemetery of Vermont.
VCR's, Rotary Phones, and more! What are the Top 5 pieces of Obsolete Technology of the last 40 years? These are the things that were huge at one point but have faded away.
At one time Cable TV was something that everyone had. They paid a high price for the privilege of access to hundreds of channels. Now however just over half of Americans have cable. More are more are cutting the cord. We go Back In the Day to the Rise and Fall of Cable TV.
Filled with cultural, natural, and industrial history the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is a state capital with small-town vibes. Take a Road Trip to find out all about what makes it a place to visit from the Capital Park, river views, family attractions, high-quality restaurants, and more!
This Week In History and the Time Capsule centers around the life and death of Elvis Presley.
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)
Listen to Episode 32 here.
Intro
Hello World, and welcome in to the in my footsteps podcast. I am your host, Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 33. This week we're going to start off with a creepy folklore tale from old New England Dummerston vine from Dummerston. Vermont. That's an interesting one. We're going to take a road trip to the capital city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that's from my 2019 road trip. I'm going to share another top five this is the top five obsolete technology from my lifetime. Things that I never thought would go out of style but have we're gonna go way way back in the day to the early days of cable TV, specifically Cape Cod Cable Vision and my recollection of when my family got cable TV. There's another this week in history and Time Capsule centered around the king himself, Elvis Presley, and much more coming up right now on episode 33 of the in my footsteps podcast. Welcome in everybody. We're only a couple of weeks from Labor Day and the beginning of my favorite time of the year, fall all the way through Christmas and New Year's Eve. That doesn't mean I don't like summer, but I just like fall a whole lot more. The weather's pretty good all the way through mid to late October. And there are far fewer people on Cape Cod because we are as packed as we can get here right now. It's terrible trying to find a place to go where there aren't tons and tons of people, pulling out my phone and going on Google Maps on a Sunday morning, and looking at the traffic and seeing just red lines everywhere. But soon enough that congestion will ease. I was really excited. Last week, I got to do my first in-person author event in 18 months, which was wild it was it felt normal. This was at the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum in born right on the Cape Cod canal. And they've got this swimming pool enclosure that they have now converted into an outdoor pavilion. And that's where we had the event. The walls were lined with lights and it was a nice breeze coming off of the water, the fog rolled in. But still you gotta take the good with the bad. Hopefully, as time goes on, these events will become normal again. But even if I got just one it was nice to have a kind of connection to how things used to be. Thank you to everyone who came to that event. And overall, thank you to everyone who has been tuning into the podcast checking out the live stream on Instagram Fridays at 8pm. reading the blog that I've been putting out so I've been trying to pay a little more attention to that as we've come into August. I have several new articles up including so it's Cape Cod history, these ones that I've been putting up Lawrence's sandwich depo from Falmouth. If you're a longtime Cape Cod you might have heard of that one. And the incredible story of Henry and Elsie Bowman, who fled Nazi Germany with no money and speaking no English and came to America and had two successful restaurants one in Harvard Square and one in Falmouth. So check out the in my footsteps podcast blog, and let's dive into Episode 33. Right here we're going to start off with some creepy old folklore from old New England. There are a lot of these cool stories that I've been researching. But here's one to share with you that maybe you haven't heard of because I hadn't heard of it either, until I researched it. Coming up right now. This is a story of the Dummerston vine cemetery on episode 33 of the in my footsteps podcast.
Dummerston Vine Cemetery
New England is essentially the oldest place in America. The first place is discovered the first place is settled with a history going back 400 years. So it lends itself to having a lot more stories, a lot more history, a lot more creepy, unusual urban legends folklore, I try to parcel out the stories the creepy, supernatural or folklore type. Because I don't want all of New England history in the New England stories to be like everything was creepy all the time. But this was a one I thought you might enjoy. This is the legend of how a creeping vine seemed to predict the deaths of family members in a small town called Dummerston. Vermont. This is the Dummerston vine cemetery story. When researching the podcast and looking for topics that I think it'd be interesting to share with people. I have a few go to sites to discover things I might not have known about. One such site is Atlas obscura.com. They are a haven for cool and creepy and unusual stories from different states. And that's where I found the story of the Dummerston vine. First a little bit about Dummerston, Vermont. So the town itself is less than 10 miles north of Brattleboro, Vermont, which itself is only 10 miles north of the Massachusetts border to kind of give you a little bit of a reference of where it is. It's a very small town population is just over 1700. And this cemetery we're going to talk about Dummerston center cemetery is located at 914, East-West road and East Dummerston if you want to go there, in doing the research for this, I got a lot of these facts from the New England grim pen Diem book written by Jay W ocher. So if you want to go check it out and get the book, there are a lot more stories. But as far as the Dummerston vine goes, the story goes back about 200 years. And it has to deal with members of the Spaulding family who started dying at unusually young ages, and with relative regularity. And this was from a strange illness that seemed to suck the life suck the blood right from them. And naturally, if you've ever researched old folklore from New England from the 19th century, and before, you'll know that there were stories about vampires, sucking the blood, but what it turned out to be was tuberculosis, which kind of doubled as vampire ism, there's a story of a woman named Mercy Brown, who was seen as a vampire in Rhode Island. That's going to be something I'll tell in the podcast later, probably in October. Needless to say, these vampire stories from 150 plus years ago, were not that uncommon. The twist with this story has to do with a vine a creeping vine in the cemetery. Basically what happened was in this Dummerston center cemetery, there was a Spaulding family who had a family plot, and as a family member would die, things became more suspicious. So eventually, they went to the cemetery due to superstition to see what was up and they found this creeping vine. And basically, their superstition was every time the vine touched the coffin of a recently deceased member of the Spaulding family, another one would die. There is a row of six graves, which are the Spaulding children. The parents are Lieutenant Leonard Spaulding and his wife, they're buried in separate unmarked graves. But the children I'm assuming are the ones that were the vine was creeping along. And this cemetery is easy to access. And I believe the Spaulding graves are kind of in the middle of the cemetery on a hill. When researching the graves, there's one son named Josiah all the rest, I guess you can't really tell who they are. The story is that after a few of these children passed away from vampire ism or tuberculosis, they went up they dug up the most recent deceased member and found the vine and destroyed it burned, it hacked it to bits to stop the vine from claiming another member of the Spaulding family. The legend kind of grew from there. But as you get into the actual details of it, it's written in the New England grim Pentium book that the children their graves are not in chronological order. So it wasn't like the vine touched one. And then the next one died and you buried that child. So it kind of doesn't lend credence to it. But what did you expect? Did you really think there was a supernatural vine that killed these children? Unfortunately, it ends up being just a sad story of a family that lost their children all basically to tuberculosis and the superstition that came that it couldn't have just been tuberculosis rating this family it had to be something else. And that's where the fault lies with the creeping vine. So there was no curse on the Spaulding family. That Dummerston vine was just a coincidence. But it is a cool creepy folklore story with some reality. I mean, they did dig up the body of the last child and burn it and destroy the vines. I mean, that's true. So I guess sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Like I said, though, check out the New England grim Pentium book. Grim Pentium is an odd word, but there aren't too many with the same name, but it's got a lot of interesting stories in it, check out Atlas obscura.com And I'm going to have a lot more stories like this, the weird McCobb and just plain unusual and odd stories that seem to dot New England throughout its 400 year history. And if you're feeling up to it, go and check out the Dummerston center cemetery and get creeped out because hey, you never know the book in common sense says that it wasn't a vine, and it was just tuberculosis, but it could have been vampires. It could have been a curse. You just never know.
Road Trip: Harrisburg, PA
This week's road trip takes us to a capital city, a city located 120 miles south of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where my last road trip was from. This is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, located along the banks of the Susquehanna River. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is a relatively small capital city with a population of just over 49,000 people. And if that seems kind of small for a capital city in the United States, just know that the smallest capital city is Montpelier, Vermont, and its population is less than 8000. It's also located less than 15 miles west of Hershey, Pennsylvania, the chocolate capital, they will be coming up in the next while not the next episode, Episode 35. That'll be the road trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, so it'll be nice and chocolatey and sweet. Harrisburg is interesting because it's got somewhat of a small town, large town, small city feel at places. But yet, right in the middle is the Pennsylvania State Capitol building, which just towers over everything. The Capitol building itself is at 501, North Third Street. And the centerpiece is the 272-foot tall 52 million pound dome that was inspired by Michelangelo's design for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. When I went there in November 2019. There's lots of parking, it's natural, it's fall, it's the northeast, so there are fewer people, so it's easier to get around, which is a lot different than if you try to go to the capitol buildings in Boston or even providence. The entire Capital Park is more than 45 acres. It's nice with statues and monuments and there are beautiful views. And if you're just looking at walking around Harrisburg with the shops that are surrounding it, there's a lot of great photo opportunities. When the Capitol building itself was dedicated on October 4 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt, he quoted saying this is the most handsome building I ever saw. And it really is it's incredible. The steps leading up to the entrance of the Capitol. And if you get to the top of the steps and turn around, there's this view of State Street leading out to the Susquehanna River. Ironically, when I was there, speaking of photo opportunities when I was there, there was actually a wedding party photo shoot going on. So that was pretty neat. When I was shooting photos, I tried not to get in the way or get the bride and groom in my photos. I don't know why I just thought it was like I was stepping on the toes of the photographer that was there. Harrisburg kind of prides itself on that, like I said, the views of the Susquehanna River. They pride themselves on being sort of a blend of the city and the nature all rolled into one. If you go there like I did in the fall, there are pumpkin patches, there's foliage, there's so much to do there for family fun. There's mini golf and city Island water golf at 600 Riverside Drive, you could go catch a baseball game featuring the Harrisburg senators there at FnB field on city island in Harrisburg. The Harrisburg senators are the double-A affiliate of Major League Baseball's Washington Senators. There's the Susquehanna Art Museum if you're into art and culture. And if you're looking for something that's just outside the borders the next town over in Hummelstown. There's the Indian eco caverns, where you can get tours of the limestone caverns and there's a petting zoo and all this other interesting stuff. Whether you're there on your own or with family or just a significant other, you got to find a place to eat to when you're in Harrisburg. You can do a little more fine dining with the Gabriella Italian Ristorante at 3907 Jonestown road, or at Gabriella ristorante.com. They've been open since 1997. And they're one of the most highly regarded restaurants in Harrisburg. If you're looking for something a little more low-key pub-like atmosphere, there's the millworks at 340 Verbeek Street, they've got their own brewery, outdoor courtyard, and even Art Gallery and gift shop. So that's a great place to check out. They're also at millworks harrisburg.com. If you're looking to actually spend the day spend the night there and not just pass through like I did on my road trip, you've got plenty of options. The Red Lion Hotel is at 4751 Lindell road. It's centrally located and it's part of a bigger group, the Red Lion hotels, but it definitely stands out as a place that you can bring the kids or just go on your own. They've got arcade games ping pong, billiard rooms, outdoor pool outdoor playground. So if you're bringing the kids which you know, Hershey Park, which is nearby, usually you're bringing your kids with you, red line is a good place to stay, check out red lion.com To get more info about that. And even though I just scratched the surface of what there is to see and do and Harrisburg being let it's a capital city and all that checkout, visit Hershey harrisburg.org, to give a lot more ideas for things to see and do. Because like I sat on this road trip I did. I was not racing through every place but trying to see as much as I could as fast as I could to keep moving. When you're trying to do 2100 miles in six days, it does not lend itself to giving time to sit back and enjoy what you're seeing. But I did standing on the steps of the state capitol and just overlooking the beautiful scenery and the Susquehanna River and the wedding photography going on. It really captured a moment. But don't take my word for it. Like I say, with all these places and all my road trips that I go to just go and walk around and find your own way or point your car and drive and find your own little nook. And make your own adventures don't go just with what I suggest because that's based on my ideas of what would be fun and things to see and do. Coming up for the next up on the road trip and episode 35. We're gonna go right next door to Harrisburg to Hershey. And that's going to be a lot of fun. That was an interesting time too. With so much natural cultural and industrial heritage. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has got a lot to see. And even though it just passed, I'll say it in July there's the Pennsylvania Farm Show, which is the largest indoor agricultural event in the country. I didn't know if I should bring it up because it literally just passed less than a month ago. There are exhibit competitions, plenty of food, and usually more than 400,000 visitors come to this event annually due to COVID and all the stuff that's been going on the 2022 Farm Show has been moved up so you're in luck. It'll be January 8 through January 15 of 2022. It's at the farm show complex and Exhibition Center. That's at 2300 North Cameron Street for more information, check out farm show.pa.gov and enjoy Harrisburg restaurants, culture, art, beautiful scenery and so much more. And I'll be back next time as we go to neighboring Hershey, Pennsylvania for the next road trip.
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This Week In History
this week in history is centered around one of the greatest entertainers in the history of America, the one and only Elvis Presley. We're going to start off with the sadder part of this, which was 44 years ago this week, August 16 1977. With the death of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll passed away on this day at the age of 42 in Memphis, Tennessee and his Graceland estate. Doctors said it was a heart attack likely brought on by his drug addiction. But you'll even get the people that are huge fans that say that he faked his death and is still alive. Even today. He'd be 86 if he was, Elvis grew up poor in Tupelo, Mississippi. But his career took a different path. When he was 19. He walked into a Memphis recording studio and paid $4 To record a few songs as a present to his mother. Sam Phillips, who was the owner of the studio was intrigued by Elvis and his voice, and got him to practice with some local musicians after Phillips heard him sing. That's all right, which was originally a blue song sung by Arthur crude up in 1946. Philips heard him singing that song, and the rest was history. He agreed to release the rendition as a single on his Sun Records label. And from there, Elvis took off and became the biggest thing ever in music really, his songs like Hound Dog, don't be cruel. Love me tender Jailhouse Rock, suspicious minds. And even later ones like Viva Las Vegas and burning love. He had so many hits. He's one of those worldwide recognized names even today. When you think about most famous musical artists. He's up there with the Beatles or Michael Jackson. As far as even long after their peak successes over everyone still knows because of the influence that they had over music in general. By the mid 1970s. His career was starting to wind down he was declining physically and mentally. He gained weight he became addicted to drugs, and divorced his wife Priscilla in 1973. And he was erratic on stage. And then on August 16 1977, he was found unconscious in his Graceland mansion and rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Graceland since then, because he's buried there. Graceland is this huge tourist attraction one of those big places to go see that any music fan should go and check out. But this week in history 44 years ago, the king Elvis Presley passed away. And now comes the happy part under the new time capsule. We're going to go back 61 years this week to August 15 1960. And I chose this because I was trying to find a day this week in history, where Elvis had the number one song in America to make it fitting. That being said, the number one song in America was it's now or never by Elvis Presley. It was off of his album Elvis is back and was actually his best-selling single of all time selling more than 20 million copies. It spent five weeks at number one in America. And interestingly, in the UK, when they re-released the album it went back to number one in 2005. So that's pretty good staying power for a song. This was a big hit, partially because it was a good song. But also partially this was right after Elvis got out of the army where he had been from 1958 to 1960. The number one movie was Ocean's 11. This is the original version of the movie starring the Rat Pack. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. and it's centered around an elaborate heist on New Year's Eve in Las Vegas. It ended up making $5.5 million at the box office, and obviously was big enough as a cultural phenomenon to spawn a reboot, and then sequels to that reboot. But the original Ocean's 11 was number one this week in history. The number one TV show was Gun Smoke. And for those of you that have been loyal listeners to the podcast, you know that Gun Smoke popped up about a month ago when doing the time capsule for my stepfather Serpa’s birthday last month. Gunsmoke was number one, then two, but it was hard to miss. It was the number-one TV show in America year over year from 1957 through 1961. So basically, if I do any time capsules from that time, there's a good shot that I'm going to get Gun Smoke in there. The show was on for more than 20 seasons on radio and TV and was about Marshal Matt Dillon fighting against the bad guys in Dodge City, Kansas. And finally, if you were around on August 15 1960, and you happen to have a really bad headache, I get headaches so I could sympathize. You are in luck because there was a new invention a new product on the shelves. It was a pain medicine called Excedrin that had just come out. And if you wanted a pack of 36 of these pills Excedrin headache pills, they cost just 69 cents. when adjusted for today, that would be about $6.33, which actually sounds about right. And those are still going strong Excedrin. I've got some over my shoulder on a shelf right now. And that'll wrap up another time capsule another this week in history. And we'll be back at it again on Episode 35, with some more interesting stuff that happened in the past.
Top 5: Obsolete Technology of My Lifetime
So as I sit here, with this microphone, looking at my laptop computer, looking at my smartphone, I thought it would only be appropriate for this week's top five, that I look at things that used to be big that I never thought would go away, top five obsolete technology of my lifetime. So we're looking back the last Well, unfortunately now over 40 years, and where does the time go. But I'm going to look at things that I remember from all my years that used to be big, and now they're gone, and I never thought they would be. So let's dive in with some honorable mentions to kind of give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Honorable Mentions obsolete technology of my lifetime include floppy disks, actual print encyclopedias, dial-up internet, which we all remember, overhead projectors, which are the ones where the teacher would put like a clear sheet on there, they would do work on the sheet and you could see it on the pulldown screen, and library card catalogs who remembers learning the Dewey Decimal System, we don't even need that anymore. But those things are all honorable mentions for obsolete technology of my lifetime. And remember, as I always say these are in no particular order. So let's dive into the actual top five. Number one is the VCR and VHS tapes. Back in the 1980s. And into most of the 1990s. There was nothing cooler than sticking a black rectangular tape into these VCRs and hitting record and having your favorite show they're available for you. It seems so high-tech, I think I still have a box in my mother's basement of all these WWF wrestling pay-per-views that I recorded on VHS tapes that are now they're obsolete. And I have 30 Something VHS tapes of things I recorded with my camcorder when I was in high school and wanted to be a film director. Luckily today, there's software that you can hook into your laptop, you hook it up to a VCR into your laptop. It's called Elgato is the company if you're interested. But you can digitize your VHS tapes. And I've been doing that and that's actually fun to relive the nostalgia. But DVDs came along and kind of kicked VHS to the curb in the late 1990s. Number two rotary phones slash landline phones in general, I can remember growing up having phones that were just in the living room and plugged into the wall and having a cord from the phone to the actual main apparatus. And people had rotary phones, you had to stick your finger in the number and spin it and actually dial the phone like that if people had multiple zeros and nines and their numbers seemed to take forever just to make the call. And then if they weren't there, it was like You wasted all that time. Good luck trying to have privacy too. When you're on the phone if you've got siblings like I do, trying to talk on a corded phone and hiding around the corner of the wall trying to speak quietly. Once you got a cordless phone. It was like the greatest thing ever. But you were still stuck to a certain distance from the actual main apparatus of the telephone. I'm sure some people still have landlines just because it's habit but they're really a dying breed much like phone booths that used to be everywhere. They're fading away still but as far as rotary phones are long gone, and landline phones are likely going to be gone within the next 10 years or so replaced by smartphones that everyone can just have in their pocket. Number three audio cassettes slash Walkman. Boy, I did an episode way back at the beginning of the podcast episode two where I talked about the fun of making mixtapes and it's interesting now that I have just like with the VHS tapes, I've got a box of old cassette tapes I've got nowhere to play them. cassettes were fun, cause singles were fun when you buy just one song, but you'd always have trouble where the tape could get stuck in the radio. And you'd have to use the pencil to pull the tape back in. The tape could snap and it wasn't like cassettes were cheap. Like later on when they became near the end and they were in the bins at the front of stores for like $1 They were more expensive back then. We're talking $15-16 for a cassette tape, the only thing better than making a mix tape for someone was making your own mix tape and then playing it in your Sony Walkman and being able to go outside and have your music with you in your pocket. I just remember the batteries wouldn't last too long and a Walkman, they would die pretty quick. And usually the headphones that you had with it were really cheap with this flimsy fabric over the ear parts. And it was just uncomfortable, and the sound would be tinny. But back in the 80s, that was the coolest thing ever, because you're outside with your music privately for you. And the Walkman got replaced by the disc man later when compact discs became big. And those were just as troublesome because you had to get the anti-skip ones. Because if you bumped the thing, it would immediately skip. So then you had to pay extra for that. Number four is photo film. So in the days now where you got digital cameras and cameras on your phone, and that instant gratification where you click the photo, and you can see if it looks good. And you can immediately take a new one if you have to. A lot of you aren't going to appreciate what it was like to have to actually open the back of a camera, stick the film in wind it in properly. But just enough that you didn't start exposing the film. And then taking the photos, not knowing if they were any good. bringing them to a place to get them developed. It could have been CVS, it could have been Walgreens, it could have been Fotomat, I'll do a segment on a photo mat later on in the podcast. But then going through all that effort and getting your photos back and having half of them be crap. And just being so frustrated. In high school, I learned all about photography with the film and learning how to develop it in the dark room. And that's another thing, it's all obsolete, you don't need to know it. It's more a small niche where yeah, there's photo film still, but oh my god, it's got to be like 1% Compared to 100%. And don't get me started on the disposable cameras that they had back then same thing, you take the pictures enough to wind it to get to the next part of the film and then drop the whole camera off. And then the same thing, you get the photos back and half of them will be garbage, you just want to rip them up and smash the camera. And finally, number five is physical maps. So again, this goes back to everyone has GPS, everyone has Google Maps or some sort of a map application on their phone, where there's no need to actually know directions on where to go. You type in an address and the voice tells you where to turn and where to go. And if you miss your turn, it recalculates and gets you there regardless, back in the day 80s 90s. Even through the early to mid 2000s, you had to have an actual physical map of big folded, cumbersome map that you had to have someone navigate in the passenger seat to get you where you had to be. Even me when I did my very first travel trips. As far as my travel blog and such back in late 2009 2010. I didn't have a GPS and I did actual physical map directions. And it was such a disaster that I went and spent the money on a GPS, a Garmin. When it comes to having a GPS and Google Maps I'm definitely not going to be the old man yells at cloud, or I wish we still had physical maps and landline rotary phones and dial-up internet and all this stuff. No, no, no. I appreciate all the technology that we have now. Because I lived through the technology we had, then I think that's what really makes a difference. Do you remember any of those things from this top five, the obsolete technology? Did you live with any of that? Let me know if there's any I missed two. And I'll be back next time with another top five list.
Rise and Fall of Cable TV
It's interesting. Now we're in the 2020s. And one of the big things to do is cut the cord when it comes to cable television because of how outrageously high cable bills usually are for most people. But interestingly, not that long ago. Cable TV was a new thing that everybody wanted and they were willing to pay the price for those extra channels. I remember first getting cable. I remember the cable company and growing up on Cape Cod and I want to go back in the day and share my experiences first with cable and the company that we had for a while Cape Cod Cable Vision for me and for my family. I believe we first got cable television in 1985 and it was a huge deal. There was a little black box that you had on top of your TV and a remote. That was fun and far more rudimentary than what you've got today that you speak into and it pops up with a channel you want. Back then though, when we first got cable, the big channels were Nickelodeon, and the USA Network, HBO, and of course MTV. Interestingly though, it wasn't until I started researching this topic for the podcast that I realized that cable television goes back way further than when my family first got it in 85. In fact, the beginnings of cable TV go back to almost when TV became widely available in the late 1940s. The first commercial cable television system in the United States was created in 1950 by a man named Robert Tahltan, from Lansford, Pennsylvania, and that's kind of the genesis for everything that came after, but I'll rein it back in towards the Cape Cod Cable Vision. So they actually got started in 1966, which is way before I thought they were even a thing. So Cape Cod Cable Vision when they started and pretty much through most of their time in existence. They serve the mid-cape and that's where I grew up. Barnstable Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Chatham. Eventually, there would be continental cable, which I believe serve the rest of the cape. But Cape Cod Cablevision is what I remember growing up. So originally, when they started, the FCC allowed them eight channels. So that was what was considered cable TV was eight channels. I'm assuming because back when you had the dial TVs with the actual channel dial, you only had so many channels, and there were only so many you could fit on there. The man who owned Cape Cod Cablevision at the beginning was named Stanton pretty. Initially, when you saw the people that first got cable, it was 495 a month, and $10 to actually install the cable and then it was $1 per extra television. They built the huge towers, there was 100-foot tower in Hyannis, and 310-foot tower on Theopolis Smith road and Dennis, and they're still there. But it must have been interesting to have a 310-foot tower being built in Dennis in the late 1960s. Around the same time that Cape Cod Cablevision was kind of coming into its own. There were 3.6 million homes with cable in America in 1969. HBO was the first true cable channel to come. I mean, everyone else it seemed to be like National channels that you got to then see ones like TBS and TNT or CNN like later on. But HBO came around in the 1970s to provide movies to people. The first satellite-delivered broadcast station, so not movie station was Ted Turner's WTCG, which he called watch this channel grow. And that came out in 1976. Cable was expanding rapidly in the 70s. By March 1973. On the cape, though, there were 9000 subscribers. And at that time, there were 12 channels. And as it turned to the 1980s, this was when a lot of the today what would be considered the original cable networks started to come around. I mentioned USA, MTV, Nickelodeon, CNN, there was ESPN, Showtime, Bet. And in the early 80s, that's when they started to raise cable rates as more channels came around. This is also when the prevalence of the black box came around. If anyone is not familiar with that, that was kind of the hookup where you would D scramble all the stations that you didn't have. I think the statute of limitations is gone. But we used to have that where we could watch those WWF pay-per-views that I talked about when I recorded them on VHS tapes. In the top five segments, we had our black box. And this was where I came in as far as cable and being a kid you know, eight, nine years old, thinking about things you take for granted today with what you've got for streaming and for TV services. And back then it was like we had, I don't know, a couple of dozen channels. And we had Nintendo for video games. But these things didn't dominate our lives. This time when we got cable in 85. The second wave of the new networks were coming out. We're talking about Disney Channel, lifetime Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, the home shopping network, which was big arts and entertainment, and then the pay-per-views started. And this could be trouble if you are a parent because you could have a kid that could later on you could order pay-per-view through your remote, but I think you had to call it in back then so it was a little bit harder to accidentally spend $30 for a pay per view event. In the early 90s Cape Cod Cablevision down here got sold to telecommunications, Inc or TCI, they served 10 million people at a time. So they were far bigger. It's sort of like what happened with cell phone companies were the little ones like I used to have singular, and they got absorbed by AT and T so it's the same where you had almost Mom and Pop cable services and they got absorbed by the bigger ones. But that only lasted a few years by 1996 Cape Cod Cable Vision. So it was TCI Cable Vision of Cape Cod. They got sold the continental so the whole Cape was under one banner by then I can remember one of the best things about having cable TV back in the 80s we got NESN, which was the New England Sports Network. And we got SportsChannel, which had the Celtics games, SportsChannel, now, NBC Sports Boston, but that was so cool to be able to watch all the Celtics games when they were great. And NESN watch the Red Sox games. I mean, they were not great, but we still love them anyway. And as time went on, the cable boxes got more advanced, the remotes got more advanced. And this is it got to the end of the 90s is where it started to get more complicated, where there were hundreds of channels, and so many of them it was you know, MTV had MTV2 and MTV classic. And you get several channels for the same under the same umbrella. But at least by them, there were different tiers where you could pick kind of how much you paid, and you got a certain number of channels. But in the late 90s, that's like direct TV came around satellite television, and then the Internet came around, even though it was dial up. So you started to get easier access to television programs, although there was no YouTube yet. But it was kind of heading towards streaming. And that's where we're at now. And in the last 10 years, that's when it's really started to fall off. In a survey by the Pew Research Center. It was said that in 2015 76% of Americans said they had cable TV or satellite TV, and that number has dropped to 56% and 2021. So that's now just over half. That's getting very low because think about it. Everybody had cable back in the day, the peak year was seen as 2000. And it's been dropping ever since. And you can kind of see you don't have to be my age or older you can be younger to see what has been coming since then. streaming services on demand services, Internet TV stations that you've got, you know, YouTube as its own TV, you got Hulu, you've got Netflix. I never thought I'd see the day when cable TV would now be the dinosaur but it is and people are cutting the cord. I haven't had cable TV. I use my laptop, the internet. What about you? Do you still have cable TV? Or do you do streaming? Do you do Hulu and Netflix? Do you have one of these like Disney plus or peacock or things like that? And do you remember when you first got cable, I remember 85 and Cape Cod Cable Vision still, but those days are long ago. Cable TV is definitely heading downhill as more people cut the cord.
Closing
That'll wrap up episode 33 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you all so much for tuning in and checking it out. I really appreciate all of you that have stuck with this. I'm coming up on a year of doing this in November. So it's just it's really neat because everything still feels new. I still have so many awesome topics to cover. I've said it a lot on my live stream. But I have enough information I researched that I could do this podcast easily for four years. If I did no more research, and I'm still doing more research. If you've enjoyed the podcast, spread the word, share it with people, you know, go on to the different platforms and give some good reviews and some positive ratings. That helps so much because other people are influenced by ratings. Check out my live stream without a map. It's every Friday at 8pm on Instagram. It's kind of an unofficial second podcast. It's like my Talking Dead for those that are Walking Dead fans. Be on the lookout for my sixth book, iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod. I mentioned I did my first in-person event in 18 months last week. But you can find it at any local bookstore on Amazon. You can find it at history press.com If you want to buy me a coffee, you can go find the in my footsteps podcast on buy me a coffee, you know any donations I use towards advertising for the podcast. I'm trying to reinvest in myself as we go along. You can find me on Twitter. I'm always posting things about the podcast or sharing other interesting stuff. Go become a subscriber on YouTube. I just put up a new video which interestingly, it was about grand illumination, which is a really fun festival on Martha's Vineyard. It's the third Wednesday in August every year, where the little gingerbread Cottages of Martha's Vineyard camp meeting Association, they get adorned with Chinese lanterns and colorful lights, and they get lit up. And it's really cool. It's like a fairy tale. And I put a new video up about what I went there and checked it out. I also did a video on the 60th anniversary of the Cape Cod National Seashore. So those are fun to check out. There'll be more 4K New England coming I promise at some point, likely in the fall. I mentioned at the top I have the in my footsteps podcast blog. I've got a lot of Cape Cod in New England history subjects on there. Some of them have been on the podcast, some of them will eventually be on the podcast, but you can go read about it, especially if you grew up on the cape. I'm kind of hitting in your wheelhouse, so you should go check it out. Coming up next week. Episode 34 is a special bonus edition of the podcast, which I do usually every fourth one to use up my extra minutes that I have on my monthly plan. So this one will be about 20 minutes, little over 20 minutes. And I'm going to talk about my experiences in landscaping. There are a lot of funny and crazy stories. But it's all it's a love letter to landscaping because I feel landscaping, that kind of manual labor. And also the hospitality industry are two industries that kind of get looked down on. And I've worked in both. And I can tell you that the people I've worked with in both are some of the hardest working people there are out there. They work in the heat. They work in thankless situations, long hours. So I'm going to share some of that too. But it'll be a lot of funny stuff. I promise. That's coming up next week. I wanted to take a moment now, to give a special birthday shout-out to my oldest friend Barry. Because next week will be a special edition of the podcast. I don't know if I'll remember to do it. But his birthday is coming up on August 28. You hear me name-drop him a lot on here as far as his contributions to my website, because he's an amazing graphic designer. But even more than that he's a more amazing human. I mean, he has talents that I can't believe with graphic design and his musical talents. But beyond that, he's got this talent of just being an awesome human being husband and father. And every time I talk to him, I am just more and more proud and grateful that I know him and that I have known him ever since we were little boys with big dreams. So I wanted to make sure I took the time to give him a proper birthday shout out and not do it the week after. So it's belated. So happy birthday coming up to you, Barry and I'm sure I'll see you again soon. So we can sit around the fire pit and laugh like the old days. 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 just never know. It's better to be happy today and just go from there. I'll see you all next week for episode 34. Have a great rest of the week. Talk to you all again soon.