Episode 37: Writing For Travel Channel; Defunct New England Stores; The 27 Club; What Was A Fotomat?; Hagerstown MD(9-16-2021)

Episode 37 starts with the time I briefly wrote for Travel Channel's website.  How did it come about? What were some benefits?  What were some problems?
Take a trip back in time and reminisce about some favorite defunct New England based stores.  These were all once giants of business but no more.  They are collected in the latest Top 5 list.
The epic 2,100-mile Road Trip continues with a stop in Hagerstown, Maryland. Good food, breweries and wineries, hiking, fishing, and historical Civil War sites are just some of what makes up this town.
Go Back In the Day to find out just what in the world a Fotomat was.  They once dotted the country by the thousands but advances in photo film development and eventually digital photography made them a part of history.
This Week In History includes the bizarre story of music's 27 Club who added another member this week in history.  There is also a new Time Capsule as well.
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
• Cape Cod's Best Bed and Breakfasts - Travel Channel.com
• Visit Hagerstown.com
• Christopher Setterlund's YouTube Channel
• Fotomat Fans.com
• Christopher Setterlund.com

Listen to Episode 36 here.

Transcript

Intro

Hello World, and welcome into the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 37. This week, we're gonna look at that brief time back in the day when I actually did some writing for the Travel Channel website, what went into it and kind of some of the benefits that came from it. Going to take a road trip to Hagerstown, Maryland, as we keep going on my 2019 epic road trip, I'm going to share with you a new top five different New England based stores, that's going to be a fun one, I had fun putting that together, you'll remember a lot of them, I will share with you Just what the hell a Fotomat was. And there'll be a new this week in history and time capsule. So let's dive right into it. There's a lot to get into right now on episode 37 of the in my footsteps podcast.

Welcome, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to everyone who has checked out any of these episodes, as I have come up close now to a year of making this podcast. It's been a lot of fun putting these together, I even enjoy the editing process, and I market the hell out of it myself. So if you listen to it, if you like it, if you share it, I really appreciate all of that. We're now knee-deep. And my favorite time of year after labor day has passed all the way through till New Year's, I just love the fall. And then the holidays that come later in the fall and then the beginning of winter, not the entire winter, just the beginning. And then I get sick of it real quick. Are you getting used to the sunsets ticking back. I'm a big photography fan, as you know from hearing the dedication to the craft series that I do on the podcast. So I enjoy the sunset being a little earlier, it makes it possible to go shoot the sunset and then go home for dinner. Rather than waiting until 838 45 to go shoot the sunset. I also don't mind the weather getting a little cooler to be able to take the AC out of the window and put a fan back in it and have it be just nice fall air coming in. I got the Scandinavian blood in me. So I naturally run hot. So basically, when it gets above 75 It's not my favorite thing. So when the temperatures are down in the 50s. That's more my wheelhouse. But like I said, I'm not a huge winter fan. I used to be as a kid when you could skip school, but not anymore, is basically because I got a shovel. So that makes it less fun. So whether you're out for a nice walk, I mean, it's not quite fall yet when this goes live, we're still a few days away. But whether you're out for a walk, or driving to work, or maybe at the gym on the treadmill or something if you're listening to this podcast, thank you, we got a great one coming up here. I'm excited when I put this one together. I was excited to get down to it. If you like it, like I said, share it around, give some reviews, because that really helps the podcast when people see positive reviews. But there's a lot to get into. So let's just dive in. This will be the story of when I had a little brief tenure where I wrote for the Travel Channel website. It's interesting how it happened and some of the benefits. But that'll be how we start off right now on episode 37 of the in my footsteps podcast. 

Writing for Travel Channel

The very beginning of 2010 was when I started doing travel writing. Essentially, it was a way that I coped with the death of my Nana she died right after Christmas in 2009. And the way that I coped with it was by taking my camera taking my car, driving to different places on Cape Cod and shooting some photos of it, and then writing about it. Just why you should go there what to see places to stay. And it was easy Cape Cod is my wheelhouse I could close my eyes and tell you how to get to anywhere from where I'm sitting. Now. Once I got through Cape Cod, though, I started venturing off Cape and going to places all across New England. And I really enjoyed it. I love the travel part. I love photography. And I loved learning about the places I was seeing and making other people care about what I saw. So naturally, I started looking for ways to do that more. And freelance writing is something that's out there. You have to just look for opportunities. A lot of magazines and websites. Look for people to write stories based around usually where they're from or something that's in their wheelhouse if you know what I mean. So the travel writing that people look for that. I've done lots of writing for local magazines, Cape Cod life, Cape Cod Magazine, which is now defunct, I wrote a piece for Frommer's. It's like another type of travel guide. When you're talking about travel and travel writing, though, you can't get any bigger than the channel that's named after it. So the Travel Channel, this was in August of 2014, I guess my social media presence and my blog, and my first book had been released the in my footsteps, Cape Cod travel guide, I received an email from an editorial producer from the Travel Channel and their website. And she asked me if I'd be interested in doing a few freelance articles centered around Cape Cod for the website as like, yeah, how do I write back without seeming too interested? Because I immediately was like, Oh, my God, it's a travel channel wants me to write for them. I got back to her. And I just said, I'd be very interested in just let me know what I've got to do next, how to get started. So they had four topics that they wanted to be covered, I think I ended up doing three of them. It was Cape Cod, the best beaches, an article about each of the towns, kind of where you wrapped up what they were about. And my favorite was the top bed and breakfasts on Cape Cod. The fourth one was luxury resorts. And I think it just ended up where the timing didn't work out. Because basically, when I committed to doing these articles, the producer she gave, she said, Could you have the first one to me by next week? And that's a really quick turnaround to have something that you want to have as a polished product. You know, if I'm writing for the Travel Channel, and this is going to be seen by millions of eyes, you basically want to do your very best. As for me, I can get OCD, when it comes to making the product good. I've gotten better, as far as my blogs go now, where I can kind of get through them in one fell swoop. And it all makes sense. But in 2014, and writing for travel channel, I was nervous as hell. The first two articles, the beaches of Cape Cod, and the towns of Cape Cod, those were actually easy, because they were subjective. All I had to do was think about the beaches, what were my favorite beaches. And that was simple. If you visit Cape Cod, if you visited a lot, you kind of have your go to beaches, and you know the ones that are most popular. If I name off, Sandy Neck, or Craigville or Nauset. You know, those so those were all in there. I think I peppered in a couple that were more mid-level, meaning that they're not quite secret, like there's no secret beaches, you just have to find the way to get to them. And the town's one that was easy. Also, I basically just listed the towns and kind of a few things that made them all special. It's the same thing that I do with travel articles, when I would go to different towns, I find things that make the place special, and why people should go there. Hell, it's the same thing I do with the road trip segment on this podcast. You'll hear it coming up in Hagerstown, Maryland, I don't know much about it. So I had to find things to make it special. With those first two articles being a success, I dove into the bed and breakfast one which was absolutely one of my favorite experiences. In all of my writing that I've done through God, it's been like 15 years now, the bed and breakfast one was amazing, because I did my research and narrowed down the list to 10 that I thought were the best on Cape Cod. And then the best part was I reached out to each one and said, I'm writing an article for travel channel immediately that opens doors. If I said I was writing an article for my blog about the best Cape Cod Bed and Breakfast, they'd probably be like, Thanks, that's great. All of these 10 places all said that I needed to come and stay there and experience it. So now you're talking about the benefits of the Travel Channel name opening doors for you. But there was a big problem. In 2014 I was still working full-time in a restaurant. What that means is my days off weren't beneficial. They'd have to be the slowest days of the restaurant. So it was Wednesday and Thursday. In September. It was this time of year that I was doing this article. And it doesn't lend itself to staying many places. Out of the 10 top Bed and Breakfasts in my opinion. I stayed at two of them. That was the old harbor in and Chatham and Brewster by the sea which is in Brewster. Brewster by the sea was a lot of fun because I had a couple of drinks outside by their pool after dark and there were coyotes across at the drummer boy windmill Park. So I'm sitting out there near the pool and I'm hearing coyotes. And I'm like, God, I hope they don't come into this area. Old Harbor. And I remember had the room had these really high ceilings and a chandelier. And that was just amazing. But those were the only two I got to stay at, which was the only downside was that I had to turn it because I couldn't say, Oh, I'll come and stay at your bed and breakfast in a few weeks after the articles are done, it had to be before I had to have that little carrot dangling. I got to go have breakfast at the little in unpleasant Bay, which is in Orleans, it's got this beautiful view of the water. And I had pancakes while looking at this beautiful view of the water. So that was great. I got to go on private tours of the Lamb and lion inn, the platinum Pebble, and Liberty Hill inn. But that was it. The other ones I had to basically just thank them for their offer. But I didn't have the time, it was great to get to share the articles, and kind of promote like, look, I wrote for travel channel and put that in my resume. And in my books to say where I've written. But the funny thing is, it's a double-edged sword. So for this segment on the podcast, I'm literally going back through my emails with the producers at travel channel, I needed to remember some dates. But the irony is if you go to the Travel Channel's website, you can find the articles I wrote, but you can't find my name on them, because I'm just a freelancer. And I've tried to get my name put with them. Because it looks like I'm a fraud, where I'm saying I wrote for travel channel, here's the articles, and people will say, Where's your name? I haven't had that. But I feel that way. And so that's why I've got the emails and such, which it's a shame. But I've had people that work for travel channel, tell me that it's essentially, because they hire a lot of freelancers. They don't put their names with the article. So I'm kind of faceless, nameless, but somehow the article got written. And in the years past, I've tried to write for them again, maybe this will spur me to try to write for them. But I did get a lot of doors open as far as the bed and breakfast. And that was a lot of fun to stay at some of these great places and have breakfast at a few and get these tours of it. But it was a huge deal. It's still a huge deal, that the travel channel came and found me to write for them. That made me feel really good about what I was doing as far as writing when I'll put links in the description of the podcast to the article so you can see what I wrote. And you'll, you'll see my name isn't there. But I'm not going to share the emails with you to prove it. But you can go and check out the articles there from 2014. I think they still apply the bed and breakfast. I think they're all still there. But a few have changed hands with ownership. But that is the story of how I once wrote several articles for the Travel Channel and they're still up there for you to see today.

Road Trip: Hagerstown, MD

This week's road trip is going to take us to a spot that I wasn't initially going to include on the podcast. It's basically a spot that I stayed at during my 2019 road trip, but it was a spot with the hotel. So I stayed there and then left the next morning so I didn't really see any sights there. It was basically I went there had dinner and left. But I thought it would be nice to include them and give them kind of a shine. So this week's road trip is to the town of Hagerstown, Maryland. I said at the top of the podcast, it was a small town it's really not. The population as of 2019 is over 40,000 So that's bigger than any town on Cape Cod except for Hyannis, I think so I guess it's pretty big. If you listen to last week's podcast, I was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Hagerstown was kind of my point in my drive after dark where I said that's far enough I can find a place to stay here. For reference. Hagerstown is 70 miles northwest of Washington, DC, if you want to plot it on a map. I don't remember where I stayed as far as hotel went, but I was starving. When I got there. I ended up having an awesome dinner at the Hagerstown family diner, which is at 431 Duel highway. I couldn't find a proper website for them, but they have a Facebook page. Besides the actual food that I had, which was the country-fried steak with sausage gravy. It's like a white sauce very flavorful. Besides that, the best part of my time at the diner was the fact that it was Sunday night football and the Patriots were playing. And obviously being down south or being outside of New England. Basically everyone hates the Patriots. So I'm getting to watch the Patriots just beat the hell out of the Philadelphia Eagles and hearing the people that were in the restaurant just complaining about the Patriots saying somehow they're cheating. It just made me laugh. I just had to keep my mouth shut. Interestingly, when doing the research for the podcast for Hagerstown, I found something that I wish I had known before I went through there. Hagerstown is a part of Washington County, Maryland. And this area is steeped in Civil War history. And I should have known because the further south I go, that's where a lot of the battles were from Gettysburg south. There was a battle in Hagerstown, in July 1863, but also in Washington County, was the Battle of Antietam, which was the bloodiest single-day battle in the Civil War, where more than 23,000 soldiers were killed or wounded. And that's in the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, which is 13 miles from Hagerstown. If I had known I would have gone there the next morning, but I didn't know until researching this podcast. Washington County also has small towns of Boonsboro clear spring, funks town, Hancock, KatiesVille, but Hagerstown itself has thriving art and entertainment district. With the Maryland theater and performing arts complex. They got year-round shows and concerts. The Maryland Symphony Orchestra makes its home at the theater. There's the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts that's in scenic Hagerstown City Park, which is at 501 Virginia Avenue. Most of the Maryland segment of the Appalachian Trail for hiking that's in Washington County, only about a 15-minute drive. Southwest of Hagerstown is the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park. It borders the Potomac River. There are 184 miles along the Potomac River from Georgetown in Washington, DC to Cumberland, Maryland. This area, you know, it's walking, it's hiking, it's bike riding, it's fishing. The canal itself is nearly 200 years old, and it hosts more than 5 million visitors annually. There are also a lot of winery and brewery tours that you can do in Hagerstown in Washington County itself. In Hagerstown proper, there's cool Ridge Vineyard at 19638 Cool hollow road or at cool Ridge vineyard.com. For breweries, they've got several the Antietam brewery, there's the upper stem brewery, BJs restaurant, and brew house that so you can get food and drink and Benny's pub. If you want to check out a distillery. There are so many to check out. There's a brochure that you can download from visit hagerstown.com. It's called the poor tour of Washington County. So that's got a lot of these places to see if you want to just go and do that. There's so much though I wish I had known that Hagerstown and Washington County had all of this. All I knew was that it had a hotel to sleep at and a restaurant to eat at. But now knowing all these wineries and breweries, and civil war battlefields and places to hike, it makes me wish I had had extra time to stay there. You can tell that Hagerstown is a larger town, I mean, I said it's got more than 40,000 residents, but they have all of the big-name chain hotels if you want to stay there. Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn, Ramada, Spring Hill Suites by Marriott. I stayed at the Days Inn that's right down the road from the Hagerstown family diner. That's how I found it, was I put my stuff in at the Days Inn and then just looked on my phone to find what restaurants were near that had good reviews. So I would say if you're in the area, definitely visit Hagerstown, Maryland. I mean, you can eat at the family diner like I did. But then you can see all of these things that I missed, and I'm sharing with you and I'm kinda jealous. The arts and entertainment district sounds great, but the outdoor recreation, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and all the hiking you can do there, the Appalachian Trail and the Civil War sites that makes it a winner for me and that puts it on a list of places that I might have to go back and check out. As I said before, check out visit hagerstown.com that's got everything you need to see what there is to do where to stay where to eat in Hagerstown, and the rest of Washington County, Maryland. If you go if you visit Hagerstown, shoot me a message or hit me up on Twitter and send me photos to make me jealous and wish that I had gone and checked it out. But like I've said many times doing these road trips segments when I did that trip in 2019, it was 2100 miles in six days. It did not lend itself to giving me time to stop and enjoy. I have to enjoy it now as I reminisce, but Hagerstown, Maryland, that sounds like a spot that should be seen. And I'll be back for the next road trip segment. We'll continue on that 2019 road trip in Episode 39. Coming up, it'll be Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. That's the next spot on the road trip.

Sponsor: Wear Your Wish

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This Week In History

This week in history, we're going to go back 51 years to September 18 1970. This was the death of one of Rock and roll's biggest icons. That was guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. For those that don't know Hendrix is seen as one of the most influential musicians in rock history. If he's not the greatest guitarist ever, then he's 1 or 1A I don't know who you'd put above him. But the skill he had with the electric guitar in the late 1960s. When that was not seen as anything that was done. It's just incredible. Go check out Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock and that'll kind of give you all you need to know about who he was and his talent. His biggest hit Well, debatable. His biggest hit was covering Bob Dylan's all along the Watchtower. He also had huge hits with purple haze, the wind cries Mary, Hey, Joe, little wing. He died in London of an accidental overdose and basically choking on his own vomit, which was how he died. But the big thing that I wanted to tie in with this segment is that he died at the age of 27. And I wanted to tie in the 27 Club, which I'm sure a lot of you have heard of. It's this idea that it's almost like a curse on supremely talented musical artists that they seem to die at the age of 27. And it goes back to blues guitarist Robert Johnson that he supposedly sold his soul to the devil to be able to play the guitar. So the 27 Club didn't really become super well known until after the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994. But when you look at the sheer magnitude and number of rock music stars that died at that age, it's really a weird coincidence. Obviously Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, I mentioned Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and others, there's more than just those famous names. There are a lot of other ones. But that became a thing, especially after Kurt Cobain's death that all these famous musicians would die at the age of 27. And it started with Robert Johnson is the one that said to be as his story is wild about the crossroads. That's the song where he supposedly met the devil and sold his soul to be able to play guitar, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, though they all died within less than a year of each other. So imagine how big those three were in music back at that time, and think of three that are comparable today. And imagine all three dying that quickly. I mean, you had Tupac and Notorious BIG that died within was it like six months of each other, but there wasn't a third one. That's the only thing that I could compare it to as far as the magnitude of stars. But circling back Jimi Hendrix was one of a kind his music. I believe that he even learned to play the guitar upside down and backward, was basically the story and he could make that guitar do things that you wouldn't imagine. Incredibly for as enduring and lasting of the legacy as Hendrix has his real musical stardom was maybe five years at most, you're looking at 1966 through 1970, where he had all of his success, but yet he is widely known and revered as like a god of rock and roll, even now 51 years this week in history after his death at the age of 27, where he joined the infamous 27 Club. And now for a new time capsule. We're going back to September 12 1983 38 years ago this week. Oh my Lord, why am I reacting that way to it? Well, it was my second week of kindergarten. That's right. This is when I began school 38 years ago this month. I was a kindergartner at South Yarmouth elementary school. So old am I now that my elementary school changed names after my principal Lawrence McArthur passed away years later, and then it became a campus for Bridgewater State University. And if you really want to laugh, my second elementary school which was third through fifth grade, that's not even a school anymore, either. It's senior housing. But the number one song that week was maniac by Michael Sembello. It was in the movie Flashdance, which was quintessential 80s. The song spent two weeks at number one, but because of heavy rotation on MTV, the movie Flashdance was actually the third highest-grossing film of 1983. So there's an early example of the power of MTV right there. The number one movie was Mr. Mom, starring Michael Keaton and Terry gar, about a stay-at-home dad while the mother is a more successful businesswoman and kind of the adventures that he goes through being the stay-at-home dad. It's a good funny comedy. John Hughes wrote the screenplay, so you know, there's an 80s connection, and it's a 78% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I would recommend it. It's very 80s like movie, but I liked it as a kid and still like it now. The number one TV show was the debut episode of Hardcastle and McCormick. It was an action crime drama on ABC starring Brian Keith and Daniel Hugh Kelly. The show lasted for three seasons and 67 Total episodes. It was a modest hit at first and then quickly fell off, but it was number one this week for his debut. And if you were a child of the 80s, the week of September 12 1983. And you had the Atari 2600, which was the big video game console, I had that and you wanted some new games, KB toy store was selling Atari Games for as low as 599. Some of the new games that came out in 1983 for Atari included Dig Dug, Galaxian, Mario Brothers, and Miss Pac-Man, I don't know if any of them were 5.99. But those are some pretty big-name games. But they were all available this week. that'll wrap up another time capsule another this week in history. We are going to now jump into a new top five, this one is going to be a lot of fun. It is my top five defunct New England based stores. So let's jump into that and what that means.

Top 5: Defunct New England Stores

All right, let's go back with memories of what used to be top five defunct New England based stores. What exactly does that mean? Well, I mean, in simple terms, it's big-name stores that had their headquarters in New England or basically were founded in New England. I went back and I was going through places that used to exist big name chain stores and such some of them are from New England, but some are not. So I'm going to have to do another top five list that's just defunct stories from my childhood in general. Because I wanted to do places like Woolworth and Woolworths was not headquartered in New England, so I couldn't really use them. You ready for some memories though? Let's dive in. So honorable mentions for defunct New England based stores. We've got Benny's, which you can hear about in episode 27 of the podcast, I did a whole thing about its history. Another honorable mention is Bradley's. And that one you can learn about in episode four of the podcast I did a whole segment about them. Filling out the honorable mentions is child world, which was a toy store. Walden books, which is a bookstore, and Casual Corner, which was a clothing store that used to have one in the Cape Cod Mall. I'm sure all of you that are from around New England must remember that from the 80s. If you were around here, then. So those are the honorable mentions. Let's get into the actual top five, defunct New England based stores. Number one Filene’s. They were a department store chain, they were based out of Boston created by a man named William Filene. They began in 1881. And finally went under in 2006. Any of you around here in New England, they were in the malls. They had standalone stores, they had Filene’s basement, they were huge. It's like how could you imagine it's like Macy's going under now if that was to happen. Number two, KB toy store. I mentioned them in the this week in history segment. KB was another in the mall toy store. The KB name came from the fact that they were founded by the Kauffman brothers KB. It was founded in Pittsfield Massachusetts in 1922. They went under in 2009. And this was another one they were in all the malls. I remember the Cape Cod Mall. They had toys right up at the front when you would enter and it would seemingly be like people would just go in and make a mess and leave. That's what I always remember about KB Toys, at least in the Cape Cod mall was when all the kids went in and played with the toys that were out and then left them everywhere. It was like a kid's room. The brand name was bought in 2016 by a company called strategic marks with the idea of opening new KB toy stores in 2019. But it fell through due to lack of funding defunct New England based stores number three Ames. This was a department store based out of rocky hill, Connecticut. It was actually originally founded though in Southbridge Massachusetts. At its peak, it had 700 stores in 20 states. They went out of business in 2002. Though right around the same time, as Bradlee's interesting that these types of discount retail stores went under right at the turn of the 21st century as Walmart and Target really took hold. Funny thing is that these stores that I'm talking about some of them I don't even remember as a kid, being Cape Cod based, I would only see some of these stores in commercials. So Ames was one I remembered but only through its commercials not actually going there. And speaking of that, number four was Caldor. This was another discount chain department store. They were founded in 1951 by husband and wife team Carl and Dorothy Bennett in Norwalk, Connecticut. They were another huge one by 1985 Caldor was getting a billion dollars in sales annually. At its peak Caldor had nearly 150 stores. But much like Ames, there was financial issues, and they ended up liquidating all their assets and closing down in 1999. And finally, number five on defunct New England based stores is Jordan Marsh. This was another giant like Filene's. They were founded in Boston in 1841. By Eben Dyer Jordan and Benjamin Marsh. They were obviously a department store chain much like filings, much like Macy's today. They were in all of the malls, just like filings, just like Macy's. They were Boston's first department store. They were in attraction. The original Jordan marsh in Boston was a huge department store. They closed in 1996. But today there's still the Jordan Marsh blueberry muffins recipe that still floats around the restaurant where I worked at. We used to make those using the recipe to keep that connection so Jordan Marsh is still alive a little bit. And interestingly for another tie in Jordan Marsh used to do an enchanted village at the holidays, and Jordans furniture bought all of that stuff. So if you go to the Jordans furniture enchanted village, it's like you're seeing a piece of history from Jordan Marsh there. But there it is the top five in no particular order, defunct New England base stores, Filene’s, KB Toys, Ames, Caldor and Jordan Marsh. Do you remember any of those? Did you go to any of those, were there any that I missed? I mean, I had the honorable mentions there too. But there was only room for five. And eventually I'll do another top five. That's just different stories from my childhood because that'll be fine.

Back In the Day: Fotomat

Today, photography is so easy. You basically have cameras on your phone, you click it, the pictures done, you can see it, and you can edit it to make it look as amazing as you could possibly make it with things like Photoshop lightroom, I use an app called Snapseed. On my phone, digital photography has made everyone a photographer. They're not all good. But they all take photos, you see them everywhere, phone up in front of their face, looking at it to take photos that's like the new photographer. However, people of my generation and around my age and older, we remember when photography was film, we remember when you would take photos and not know how good they would look until you got the film developed. Going to film developing places with one-hour photo was a big thrill. Usually it was a few days, and you'd get it back and mashed up in these areas of going to CVS or Walgreens or places like that to develop your film. There was something else and that's what I want to talk about. There were these little huts, these little shacks, that were in a lot of parking lots shopping mall, lots, many of them had these bright yellow roofs, and they became icons of a day gone by they were Fotomats. And that's what I want to talk about. In addition to traditional photography, just what the hell was a Fotomat for those of you that are younger that had no idea what it was. I can only explain Fotomats as they're almost like toll booths are today, where there's one person working inside, and you would drive up to the Fotomat, this little tiny hut that was got no more than 20 square feet maybe. And there'd be one person inside it was like a drive-thru, they'd open, they'd reach out, you'd have the film that you had taken, and you'd hand it off, whoever was working in there would give you a receipt that would tell you when your photos will be done, where you could go back to the Fotomat and pick them up. But the interesting thing is that that was just a place you dropped them off Fotomat, the spot in the parking lot. They didn't develop the film, which is something I always thought they did. The film would be shuttled off to a different place to get developed and then brought back to the Fotomat. And this was really their only job Fotomat's job was to develop photos. And for a while especially the 70s and 80s. They were huge. I remember them on Cape Cod. They were basically the same size as like an ATM machine. These places they did not come equipped with bathrooms. So God help you if you worked inside one and you had to go pee, you'd have to probably run across since they were in shopping center parking lots, you could probably lock it up and run across to a bathroom. The people that worked at Fotomat had their own identities. The men that work there were dubbed photo max. And the women that worked there were the Fotomates and the owners they encouraged and required the Fotomates to wear short shorts, hot pants, kind of the strategy that was used with flight attendants to make them look sexy. So you'd want to I don't know why that would make you want to go bring your photos there for the two seconds that you might see a woman standing outside with hot pants on. If this all sounds ridiculous, it seems that way now looking back, but going back into history Fotomat was a huge company. So the idea of this drop-off photography type of place came from the mind of a wealthy aviator named Preston fleet. And it's really so simple. It's basically a tollbooth to drop your photos off at and you just come back and pick them up like a drive-thru fast food restaurant at the height of the success of the Fotomat in the 70s into the early 80s. So right into my childhood. There were more than 4000 of these Fotomat kiosks located across the US and Canada, you would have thought they would have been a bigger deal because there was very low overhead. So ATM with a roof with one person inside no bathroom, and you're just collecting photo film. Surprisingly, the more successful they became, actually, it was a detriment. Fotomat itself was founded in 1967. And interestingly, Preston fleet bought out another man named Charles Brown, who had actually originated the drop off and pickup film idea. Fleet was a pretty smart guy too. So because of the popularity of Kodak film, he based the Fotomat color scheme on Kodak. So people when they started off thought that Kodak was the operator of the business in 1970, Kodak filed a lawsuit against Fotomat, and so they had to change their colors. But the concept was a success. There were 1800 Fotomats within the first 18 months of operation. Like I said, At its peak, there were more than 4000 locations. But the problems sometimes were locations. I look at it like today, there are so many Dunkin donuts on Cape Cod, there's a spot in Dennis, where if you're standing there you can see three different Dunkin donuts from the same spot. So with Fotomat it was similar where they would almost cannibalize each other's sales because they'd be open so close to each other. And this was by the early 80s, that started a downturn fleet who had founded it, he had sold off his share. So there was no one there from the original ownership group. And this was when CVS and Walgreens and the like started to do photo development. But it was, like I said earlier, the One Hour Photo idea, that was really what put an end to Fotomat because why drop your photos off, and get them the next day when you can go to a place and get them in an hour. So these One Hour Photo mini labs. For example, in 1980, there were only 600 of these type of One Hour Photo places in America as compared to almost 4000 Fotomats. And by 1988, there were almost 15,000 of these One Hour Photo labs in an attempt to try to recover sales and branch out into something different Fotomat started renting videos. Now imagine that, how many videos could you actually store inside these little closets with a roof. But that didn't succeed either. And the writing was kind of on the wall. By 1990, there were only 800 Fotomats left in the US. It was only a few years after that Fotomat was basically a memory. But these kiosks that used to have the Fotomats they stuck around, some of them are still around to this day. They either sell coffee or cigarettes and such. It's really a fascinating story of this type of business that was so successful and just became a victim of the changing technology and the changing times. If you want to walk down memory lane, there's a website called Fotomat fans.com. And they've got all these old photos to jog your memory of the old kiosks and some of the old advertisements. They had TV ads, you can find them on YouTube. I do remember Fotomats as a kid. I don't remember if I ever dropped my photos off there. I was really young. I mean they were on their way down. By the time I was in fourth and fifth grade. We had one in a shopping plaza, not far from where I lived. And I always wondered I was when researching this for the podcast. I was wondering if people ever drove into the kiosks and stuff because you imagine some people drive like idiots in parking lots. So if there was this little building no bigger than a toll booth or an ATM. I wonder how many cars smashed into those driving around? Did you ever go to a Fotomat? Did you ever work at a Fotomat? And if you did, what was it like being stuck in that little booth all day? And where did you go to the bathroom? But Fotomat that's another fun slice of going way back in the day things that used to be big and it is just gone now.

Closing

That's going to wrap up episode 37 of the in my footsteps podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening. I always have a lot of fun putting the itinerary together for these podcasts and hoping that you find them interesting and amusing. It's a lot of stuff just from my life dumped out onto these airwaves. But the more I go through the podcast, the more I realized a lot of this stuff you all can relate to. There are a lot of people my age that listen, a lot of people that grew up were in my area that remember the same things. So it's fun. I hope I jog your memory with some fun stuff. Tune in Friday nights at 8pm on Instagram for my without a map live stream. That's where I basically dive deeper into the podcast and random topics I always say it's like My Talking Dead for those that are Walking Dead fans. Find me on Twitter. I've got a Facebook fan page for the in my footsteps podcast if you want to go follow over there, subscribe on YouTube. I just put up a couple of New 4k New England videos. So those are always good. It makes you feel like you are where I was shooting. If you want to buy me a coffee, go to buy me a coffee.com Find the in my footsteps podcast. Anything that's donated goes to advertising the podcast I kind of reinvest in myself, check out the in my footsteps podcast blog@blogger.com It's a lot of travel history, sharing the podcast, I've got some lifestyle topics up there. That's always fun. I try to update it as often as I can. But there's only so much time in the day. All six of my books are available on Amazon, you can get most of them in local bookstores. I don't know what is sold out where but Amazon. Or if you go to Schiffer Publishing or the history press, you can find them there. If you ever have any questions, comments, or suggestions for future podcast episodes, shoot me an email Christopher setterlund@gmail.com. Or you can email me directly through my website, Christopher setterlund.com. That is run by my oldest friend Barry Menard. I've mentioned a bunch. He's the one that created it, he's the one that updates it. And I never get tired of giving him a shout-out. As I say, during every episode of the podcast, make sure to take care of your mental health and lean into the things that make you happy. I had a couple of weeks ago, I had to skip a live stream. Because I was just burned out. It's constant content creation that I do with the podcast, the live stream, and the blogs and YouTube videos. And it's researching and editing and working on a couple of book projects. So eventually you got to give yourself a break, you can only burn yourself so much before you're just tired. And that's all right, that's what I'm leaning into is just if you need a break, if you're burned out, take a break, do things that make you happy. Because it's better to do that than to go the opposite way and just work until you drop. And in the time since the last podcast was uploaded, I passed one year without alcohol. And that's one of those I don't shout it too much. But with all when I talk about mental health and stress and leaning into what makes you happy, I can tell you that for me. Not drinking has made that easier because I'll just be straight up. Nothing good has ever come into my life from drinking. So I mean I'd I'd love to be able to have a drink with friends at a bar. But that's just not possible with my genetics, I suppose. But that's a little peek behind the curtain as far as what's going on. Tune in next week for a special bonus episode 38 I am so excited about this. It is going to be the 30th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind album, which basically changed the whole trajectory of my life. I can't wait to talk about it. The podcast is going to actually drop the day before it will be the 30th anniversary. So I'll go into why that album is important why Nirvana was important to me and to Generation X and all these people. And the lasting legacy of the album and Kurt Cobain and all that stuff. I can't wait. That'll be next week. But 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 and it's better to be happy than the other way. Thank you all so much again for tuning into my podcast. Have a great rest of your day, week, whatever it is, and I will talk to you all again soon.