Episode 39: Running A Marathon; Being A 1980's Patriots Fan; Top 5 1980's Saturday Morning Cartoons; Harpers Ferry WV(9-30-2021)

Episode 39 begins with tips and advice for those looking to train for and finish a fall marathon.  When you've run out of water and busted through the Runner's High you know you're marathon training.  There's also stories from the last marathon I ran.
They've won 6 Super Bowls in the 21st Century.  However growing up in the 1980's being a New England Patriots fan was far different.  We're going way Back In the Day to when the team was mediocre at best, including when their games were routinely blacked out in the home markets.
Though small in population a Road Trip to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia is chock full of history and natural beauty.  With Civil War tie-ins, the Appalachian Trail, and a wonderful scenic overlook it is a little town big on attractions.
1980's kids rejoice, this week's Top 5 goes back to the best Saturday Morning Cartoons that used to accompany the sugary cereal and lazy mornings on the couch.
There's a new This Week In History and Time Capsule surrounding the death of young actor James Dean and more!
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
• Harpers Ferry, WV - In My Footsteps
• Harpers Ferry, WV - NPS.gov
• Christopher Setterlund's YouTube Channel
• Christopher Setterlund.com

Listen to Episode 38 here.

Transcript

Intro

Hello World, and welcome to 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 39. It's a packed show this week, I'm going to start off by sharing memories advice, cautionary tales of what it's like to train for and run a marathon will continue the Road Trip series coming to you from the little town that packs a lot of history, civil war in that era, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. We're gonna go way, way back in the day and I share memories of what it was like to be a New England Patriots fan in the 1980s. Long before the Super Bowl championships kept rolling in. There's going to be a new this week in history and time capsule, and the new top five that is going to be the top 5 1980s Saturday morning cartoons. That one was a lot of fun to put together. All of that and more coming up right now on episode 39 of the in my footsteps podcast. Hello, and welcome in to everyone who's tuning in from Cape Cod, New England and all areas beyond. Thank you so much for tuning into this podcast. I can't believe it's episode 39 already. And there's about a month to go before I hit one year that I've been doing this. I'm definitely going to do some kind of live stream on the day. I don't know if I'm going to do any sort of special podcast like a retrospective because that feels like it's kind of a cop-out. I'd rather do something original, like more original content. But either way, let me know if you if you're thinking of something that maybe I should try to do for the one year anniversary of the podcast. I'm always open to suggestions. We're getting ready for October, the spookiest month of the year. This is smack dab in my favorite time of year I've told you before starts right after Labor Day goes all the way through the end of the actual calendar year. For October I'm going to do segments on some of the creepiest stories that I've come in contact with in New England as a special for the month. It's going to start next week on episode 40. As I do a segment about Cape Cod's loneliness grave, I won't get too deep into the people that know me and know my blog, the in my footsteps podcast blog, you probably already know what it is. But I want to keep it kind of a surprise to tell the story to people that are not familiar with it. But that's going to start next week on the podcast. And obviously, tune into the live streams every Friday at 8pm. On Instagram, they're called without a map, I'll probably share a little more detail on there. Is everybody excited for fall? Are you excited for the fall foliage. I know it feels weird, at least during the time that this is being recorded. The weather is still summer weather. So it's weird because all of a sudden fall is going to hit where we'll have that first night that the temperature gets down to like the mid 40s. And then all of a sudden the leaves start to change. And that's when it really takes hold that summer's over. But New England is filled with places to see the fall foliage. And I'll definitely share some of those as we get deeper into fall and it becomes more relevant. But that's one of the big bonuses of living here. And dealing with the four seasons, the fall foliage and getting to see it on these drives. It's just amazing. Another thing that happens in the fall, October, November is fall marathon startup, the 26.2-mile road races as the weather gets a little bit easier, the endurance running starts to take hold. And that's what I'm going to start with now. My experience training for and running and finishing a marathon. For any of you out there that have that desire to do the same thing. Maybe I'll give you a little advice that will help you out. So that's what we're going to dive into right now. Let's get started on episode 39 of the in my footsteps podcast. 

Training For A Marathon

26.2 miles is a long distance. I think a majority of people in this country don't even drive their car that far in a day, let alone run it. There are some however that train for and run marathons, sometimes several times a year like it's nothing. You've seen those elite of the elite runners that can finish a marathon in two hours and 10 minutes or 20 minutes. That's crazy. The vast majority of people that do marathons they're just looking to finish. And that was my mindset because I didn't expect to be even in the position to think about running a marathon when I did my last one in 2012. I had dabbled in running when I was in middle school in high school mostly short distances. sprinting. In 2011, when I was in my early 30s, I began to seriously start running and training to run again, thanks mostly to my Uncle Steve, who became a marathon runner in his 50s. And he would always say, you know, I'm in my 50s, what's your excuse? You're 20-something years younger. By this point, I hadn't done any sort of serious running in 15 years. So I had to take it slow and start my first real run that I did that I kept track of. I did one mile on a treadmill at a 10-minute mile pace. Essentially, I said, if my feet, my knees, my ankles, if they all feel fine. After that, then I'll consider continuing to go. I was giving myself an out. Basically, if I did this mile and it hurt then forget it. It felt good. I continued on from there, gradually increasing the mileage and the speed, getting fitted for actual running shoes. And it all took off from there. Within six weeks of that first one-mile run, I ran my first 5k, which was the capabilities 5k in Hyannis. It was like a whole new world had opened up, the feeling of finishing a race was incredible. You get the runner's high. I don't know if any of you out there know what that is, you basically get to a point in your run where the endorphins take over, you've broken through kind of the aerobic phase of metabolic training. And you get this runner's high, you feel like the world is just beautiful. That kind of kept me going through running, I wanted to keep going further and faster. I was getting up to 5-6-7 mile runs, and you want to do these races. So the next step up is a half marathon, which is 13.1 miles. I completed my first half marathon in October of 2011. So that was less than eight months after I did that first one-mile run. So it was kind of a quick turnaround. In the spring of 2012, I started to get the itch to maybe try a full marathon, just to say I did it. I think that's what a lot of people do. They run or walk marathons to just say they did it. My eyes were set on the Cape Cod marathon, which was in Falmouth in October, it still goes on annually. I believe I signed up in May, and I paid it was over $100 to pay to enter that was kind of the little carrot dangling in front of me to keep me going for the training was the fact that I paid the money and it was non-refundable. So that's kind of a brief look at how I got to the point to training for it. But for you out there that are thinking about running a marathon, you want to know how do you get started. So for me, the best advice I got from my Uncle Steve was to go, the slower the better during your training runs. And you're looking at doing three to four runs per week. And I would recommend six months to train for a marathon. If you're looking to take it any sort of serious, definitely give yourself six months. So you can gradually increase your mileage per week. Think of it as whatever your time or your pace for a marathon that's in your head right now. And when you're doing training runs, and I mean, the long training runs for distance, you basically add 90 seconds for your estimated pace. So if you're thinking of running the marathon at an 8:30 pace, you would run at somewhere between 9:30 and 10-minute miles, if that makes sense. Because on race day, no matter what when you see other people going full bore when the gun sounds, your adrenaline is going to take over. So you're going to run faster than you expect. So you want to train slower, and slowly increase your mileage per week. That's one thing that I can't stress enough because I didn't listen a lot, especially when I got into running and it felt great. And I had a lot of fun. And I lost over 40 pounds. You want to just go faster and longer runs all the time, and you've got to listen to your body. At my peak of marathon training. I was doing 20 mile training runs. So think about that. I had to work a full day I was still working in the restaurant. Get out of work. Luckily we have a bike trail. There are tons of miles of bike trails on Cape Cod, but I would go to the bike trail and I would have to run 20 miles. You're looking at working a full day and then running for sometimes four hours. I'd bring water I'd run out of water. I'd bring my iPod and the battery would die. So I told you about the runner's high earlier with these 20-mile runs. You go so far that you bust through the runner's high and you're just dying and dragging yourself it becomes a job. So you have to really want it to continue this far, weekly, like I said, doing three to four runs, you want to do one long run, that's the one like 20 miles, they don't all get like that. But that's closer to the actual marathon. In my research and my training, it was basically said, if you can run 20, you can run 26.2, and your adrenaline will carry you through. But then you want to do a recovery run, which is much shorter and much slower. And then maybe one or two runs that are tempo runs, where you go kind of as fast as you can for as long as you can. It's the sweet spot between speed and distance. That's a tempo run. Remember, the rest days, remember to stretch a lot before and after a run before you do dynamic stretching, where you're kind of moving around, you know, jogging in place. Afterward, you do static stretching, which is where you give a gentle pull to the muscle to get the blood flowing. Because if you're running for four hours, good lord, those muscles are going to be just sapped and filled with lactic acid. That's where they get tight and sore and cramped. So you've trained for several months, and now it's race day. So how did it go for me? Well, let me tell you, the Cape Cod marathon route in Falmouth is very hilly, for any of those of you who have run the Falmouth road race, that's part of the course, training for Hills is very difficult. In honor of my marathon, I had my sister Kate shave a Mohawk into my head. So I had this Mohawk, and I had a kind of different-looking beard. I've got photos, I'll share it on the live stream. I started off slow, everything was good. But the funny thing is, you get into the groove of running and you don't want to stop. So you've probably heard stories of marathoners, either peeing or pooping their pants as they go because they don't want to stop. Well, I can tell you, I peed my pants running the marathon. But I was sweating so much. I was like I had no one will know because I was worried about stopping. And the irony is 12 miles in I had to stop and tie my shoe and it was disaster. I bent down to tie my shoe and my entire hamstring knotted up. I always say it felt like someone unzipped it. And I yelled and screamed and swore because it hurt like hell. And that was just the beginning. I still had over 14 miles to go and already my hamstring was cramped up. So we got to the point where close to 20 miles in I had to stop and walk because everything was sore and cramping and I had the lactic acid build up. It was so bad. I actually put a post up on Facebook during the race saying I didn't think I could finish it. I needed words of encouragement from people to finish. Because everything was in pain. You get cramped up hamstrings, you start to compensate with other things, then those cramp up. So it was just a snowball effect. My mother was waiting at mile 23. And I texted her and said I'm coming but I'm walking right now. So she had a whole bunch of photos of me just walking up to her. I had the Under Armour shirt, two layers of it, my Mohawk, and I just told her I said I'm going to do my best to finish. My goal had been somewhere between four hours and five minutes and four hours and 10 minutes. I ended up finishing in four hours and 50 minutes hobbling across the line, there weren't even that many people left at the finish line to clap because all the real runners had finished and I was just crippled up coming across the finish line. I immediately crumbled to the ground, everything knotted up. It's like I couldn't even move. I had burned over 3500 calories in that marathon. The worst injury I suffered in that marathon was a severely strained Achilles tendon, which if anyone's ever had an injury like that they take forever to heal and it's very delicate and can be a very bad injury. It took five months for that to heal. I had routine numbness going from my heel halfway up my calf. I took a few months off from running but naturally the runners addiction the runner's high got the better of me. And I came back and I started to train for another marathon. And after back-to-back 16-mile runs both Achilles' tendons were just barking at me. So I retired from marathon running, I decided it'd be better to run shorter races and be healthy then force myself to run a marathon and then risk maybe tearing an Achilles tendon. And then you're looking at nine months to a year that you can't you know, even work right. But for those of you on the fence about running a marathon after hearing my tales, I would definitely say do it and just go out there and think about just finishing don't think about a time. Don't think about trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Just go and have fun, make the most fun you can in the training to enjoy the journey. And if any of you out there are thinking about training for a marathon, you can definitely shoot me a message at Christopher setterlund@gmail.com As I've said For a certified personal trainer, I've run dozens and dozens of races. I've put 10,000 plus miles on my feet running. So if I can help with any advice, definitely shoot me an email. Otherwise, just get out there and start running and just enjoy the scenery. Enjoy the time on your own and enjoy the runner's high. That's the best part of it still after all these years.

Road Trip: Harpers Ferry, WV

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia is probably going to be the smallest town I ever talked about during the road trip segments. But it packs so much impact as far as history Civil War and the time leading up to it that you won't even notice that the population as of 2019 was only 233. This little town is located 65 miles northwest of Washington DC. It is essentially the junction where West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland all meet where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers come together. Out of all the places that I visited during this 2019 road trip. As far as historical sites go. Harpers Ferry was the one where I literally felt like I had been transported back over 150 years. Despite having a population of only 233. The town of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia routinely welcomes more than half a million visitors per year. The big talking point about Harpers Ferry is John Brown's fort. It's a small brick building with three wide doors on it. It looks almost like a really old firehouse if that makes sense. But it was here in this for between October 16 and 18th 1859 that John Brown attempted but failed to start a slave revolt by overtaking the arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Essentially, it was considered to be a dress rehearsal for the Civil War, which would start two years later. It's hard to find parking in the downtown area because it's so small. What I had to do was park just outside of town and then walk back in about half a mile. It seems far but it's not. And it builds anticipation because there's little homes on the walkway there that are teasers for the actual downtown area, and the railroad tracks run alongside you and run alongside the river. If you're going to go to Harpers Ferry, I would recommend doing the walking into town only because it really feels like you're authentically walking back into the 1850s. The buildings are just covered with plaques as far as history but the buildings also have that look like they did in the mid-19th century. Think of it as kind of like in Back to the Future Part Three, when Marty McFly goes back in time to the Old West. And the buildings had the big windows with the names of whatever the company was inside the blacksmith general store or sold hats or clothes or a tailor. Sort of like that you have to see it. I can't do it justice. It's basically like a snapshot of 160 years ago. One unexpected bonus of going to Harpers Ferry was the fact that the Appalachian trail crosses right through it. So I was able to hike it even though it was a very short period. The Appalachian Trail goes all the way from Maine to Georgia. And I've known people that have hiked the whole thing. It's about 2200 miles. So the fact that I did not even one mile on it doesn't count. It's neat though, there's a bridge that goes across the river that goes alongside the b&o Railroad. And there are all the locks, padlocks on them that will have initials on them for couples. That's the first time I've seen that in person. I know they do it. Something else to keep an eye out for as you cross that bridge, because the railroad bridge goes into the side of a hill, there's a tunnel, but on this rocky face of this hill, there is an actual old advertisement for more than 100 years ago, which just blew me away. It'll be hard to make out if you see it, but it's Mennan Bo rated toilet powder. It was basically talcum powder that was used for sunburns, prickly heat itches, rashes, things like that. It's just neat to see that painted on the side of the hill. It's more than 100 years old. In addition to all the old buildings and the Civil War connection with John Brown's fort and walking the Appalachian Trail with the men and sign in the mountain. There's this incredible overlook of the entire town. It's called the Maryland Heights loop, and it's about six and a half miles A lot of people take it. The trail itself passes along remains of old fortifications from the Civil War created by the Union army when they were up there in 1862. And it's very popular, like I said, so there's always people on the trail, it's very well marked, you won't get lost. But you get to the Overlook. And there's Harpers Ferry down below you across the river with the bridges stretching out. It's an incredible view. And the irony is, when I got there, I didn't have the time, like I've mentioned so many times on this road trip, I didn't have the time to go and hike six and a half miles I had to keep moving. So I could only look at the pictures of it after I left and be jealous and wish I had the time to go and see it and get those money-shot photos from up on top of that overlook. As far as staying in Harpers Ferry, there are only a few choices. There's a clarion in equality in those are really in neighboring Bulevar Harpers Ferry itself is very small and the entire downtown is part of a Registry of Historic Places. But the neighboring towns of Bolivar Hall town and Ranson are all right there and they have a lot more in terms of shopping, I guess you would say than Harpers Ferry. So you can stay in any of those and then visit Harpers Ferry. As you know, from listening to this podcast, I'm a big history fan. And the era from the Civil War up to the turn of the 20th century is really my favorite period of history. So getting to walk the streets that still look like they did 160 years ago, was my favorite part of Harpers Ferry. And that's why I wanted to go there, it was one of my most anticipated areas to go see, I would definitely recommend parking just outside of the downtown area and walking into it and kind of closing your eyes and imagining being back in that time period. I can't really do it justice without photography to kind of show you. So I would recommend a couple of sites that I researched to help out with this segment. Go to nps.gov/hafe that's the Harpers Ferry page that will give you some more information on what to see and do and some photos. Also check out travel awaits.com for their article weekend in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It'll give you a lot more images, which I think will really convince you to go and check it out. It's 65 miles from Washington DC. The year-round population is barely over 230 people. Yet it's so historically significant in its ties to the Civil War and the history of our country and the time since go there for the history. Hike a little of the Appalachian Trail, go to the overlook and check out the town from above. I highly recommend Harpers Ferry, West Virginia for anybody out there that loves to travel loves history, loves to hike, but I'll be back next week with a new road trip checking out the next place that I stopped on this 2100 mile six-day road trip 2019.

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This Week In History

This week in history, we are going back to the legendary death of a legendary actor who became more of an icon after his passing 66 years ago this week, September 30 1955. actor James Dean died in Sholem, California at the age of 24. When the poor she was driving hit a Ford Tudor sedan at an intersection. The driver of the other car survived. And the passenger in James Dean's car was a German Porsche mechanic named Rolf Woolrich, and he actually survived although he was badly hurt. At this point in time, only one of James Dean's movies had been released and that was East of Eden. Shortly after his death, Rebel Without a Cause and giant came out, which made him an icon and a superstar after his death. James Dean loved racing cars. So when he got in this accident and died, some people thought that's what it was, and he had actually gotten a speeding ticket in Bakersfield, California, only a few hours before this accident. Most of the witnesses say that he wasn't speeding at the intersection and that in fact, the driver the other car had made a left turn right into James Dean's path. Dean nicknamed his car, little bastard, and the legend was that the car was cursed. After the accident, the car rolled off the back of a truck and crushed the legs of the mechanic standing nearby. And later, after a used car dealer sold all of its parts to different buyers around the country. There were strange incidents surrounding those parts. This included deadly crashes. A truck carrying cars chassis to a highway safety exhibition skidded off the road killing its driver. And the remains of the car vanished from the scene of that accident and have not been seen since. While the wreck who was the passenger in James Dean's car had feelings of guilt after the accident that never went away. He tried to commit suicide twice in the 1960s. And in 1967, stabbed his wife 14 times with a kitchen knife and a failed murder-suicide. He died in a drunk driving accident in 1981. So I mean, there's a lot of bad stuff just around that accident and what happened after James Dean and specifically Rebel Without a Cause he became like a poster child for an era where his name his likeness, his attitude, his beliefs. You know, as far as an actor as far as a character, they went far beyond what he actually was on the screen. James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley. They're more symbols of a time than they are for their music or their acting. It's sad. And it's interesting to think about what James Dean could have been had he survived what he would have gone on to do. He's basically the same age as Clint Eastwood who's still making movies now in his 90s. But James Dean will forever be 24 years old. And 66 years ago this week in history. He died in a car accident and his legend only grew from there. In honor of the death of James Dean, this week's time capsule, we're gonna stay right there. September 30 1955. The number one song was the yellow rose of Texas by Mitch Miller. The song spent six weeks at number one, it was a traditional American folk song that went back as far as the 1850s. It was also recorded by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson. It's kind of controversial, because of the fact that yellow rose the term yellow is was a derogatory term for a biracial person. But to tie this back to James Dean, Mitch Miller's version was actually used in the film giant, which was James Dean's last film. The number one movie in America was to hell and back. It was a World War Two film starring Audie Murphy as himself as this follows his exploits during the war and is based on his autobiography. The film received generally positive reviews and made about $5.8 million at the box office. The number one TV show was $64,000 question. This one you might remember as the quiz show that was involved in all of those scandals in the 1950s. Basically, there were contestants that said they were given the answers to a lot of the questions in advance to help rig the game This was $64,000 question and other ones $64,000 challenge. It rolled into other shows like another quiz show named Dotto, and another one called 21. But despite that, it was very popular even though there was scandals. It lasted just over two seasons and was canceled in 1958. If you were in the market for a new home, September 30 1955, I found something for you in an archive issue of The Boston Globe. You could get a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath new home through Braintree Homes Incorporated near Blue Hills for $14,990. This included an electric kitchen fridge fireplace garage, a tile bath floor, all the works of 1950s comfort when adjusted for inflation. This home should cost today $153,000. But I looked it up to find you a home with three bedrooms one and a half bath in the brain tree area. The cheapest that I could find right now was $399,000. So that should tell you how the housing market has far outpaced what inflation should dictate. And that's going to wrap up another time capsule another this week in history. But we're going to jump right into top five. This is going to be a fun one. Top 5 1980s Saturday morning cartoons. Let's jump right into it.

Top 5: 1980s Saturday Morning Cartoons

When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s there were very few things that I look forward to more than having a nice big bowl of sugary cereal and watching Saturday morning cartoons. It was the best time to kick back relax and laugh after a long week of school and I thought there'd be nothing better than to share some of these awesome memorable cartoons with people of my generation my age group to bring some memories back. So without further ado, this is the top 519 80s Saturday morning cartoons. First though to whet your appetite. Here are some honorable mentions. They include Smurfs, Thundercats, Alvin and the Chipmunks, GI Joe, and he-man. Those are honorable mentions. Now they may be in your top five. But here comes my top five. Remember these are in no particular order. So let's dive in. Number one, Garfield and friends. I was and still am a huge fan of Garfield the comic strips the cartoons, the whole series of Garfield will be getting its own segment on the podcast at some point for retro but this was the cartoon it featured Garfield and Odie and John in their shenanigans. But it also had its offshoot that Jim Davis created called US Acres. They had their cartoons in there and they were less fun that US acres cartoons on Garfield and friends was kind of like Shemp with the Three Stooges, where it's like yeah, it's still got kind of the humor, but it's not Curly. Garfield and friends debuted in 1988 when I was going on 11 years old, and it lasted for seven seasons and 121 episodes. Number two transformers. This one was an easy one for the action, anything with transforming robots that go from different things into robots, and they had the whole line of toys, the original toys, that was basically my reward for anything good checkup, I would get a transformer. When my sister Lindsey stuck me in the eye with a pencil, which is another story and I had to have a patch on my eye. There are pictures I got transformers for that. This is the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. This was long before the movies came out. The show ran from 1984 to 1987. And in that time, there was actually an original Transformers movie that was animated in 1986. Believe me, I had all of the Optimus Prime and Megatron, Starscream and Bumblebee and my personal favorites, the Dinobots which included Grimlock who was the T Rex, man, that show was great. Number three Muppet Babies. This was a Jim Henson created project based around all the Muppet characters when they were little, and they were in this nursery with nanny who they never saw her face. It was just her feet and her stockings. The idea came from the movie The Muppets Take Manhattan from 1984 which showed them as little Kids at one point. It debuted in 1984 when I was seven years old, lasted eight seasons, and 107 episodes and actually got rebooted and 2018. But the originals are great with all of the little Muppets, except for scooters twin sister Skeeter, who was like an original character created for it. And I was like, Who was that? Even when I was seven, I knew she didn't really exist. Number four is Duck Tales. What's better than the story of Scrooge McDuck and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. It always revolved around people trying to steal Scrooge McDuck's number one dime his lucky dime. There were all kinds of unique characters like Launchpad Magica dispelled Duckworth, the butler. And of course, Donald Duck would make appearances every now and then. The original show debuted in 1987. It lasted for four seasons and 100 on the nose total episodes. A reboot of the series actually happened in 2017. And it lasted until 2021. And finally, number five on the top five list of 1980s Saturday morning cartoons is Care bears. Boy, I tell you, I had lots of Care bears when I was growing up, who can forget tender heart bear Share Bear Cheer Bear, Grumpy Bear. They had the Care bear cousins that were all different animals like Braveheart lion. I'm sure I'll do a segment about Care bears in general. But this is about the show. The show itself lasted from 1985 to 1988, with a total of 60 episodes over four seasons, and it had a really catchy theme song, which I will not sing, you'll have to look it up on YouTube for the Carebears countdown and they used to shine there. They had their stomachs had little logos of whatever their personality was, and that was their weapon. They would fight with love. The toys were a huge hit. So the TV show was a huge hit too. And that's why it makes my top five but that's gonna wrap it up top 519 80s Saturday morning cartoons. What did you think of the list? Do you remember watching those shows? Did you watch Garfield and friends? Transformers? Muppet Babies? DuckTales? Care bears? Or did you watch the honorable mentions I watched those two, but it was just a matter of whittling it down to a top five. And of course, I'll be back in the next episode with a totally new totally random and totally fun top five segment.

Back In the Day: Being A 1980s New England Patriots Fan

In the 21st century, the New England Patriots are possibly the most successful franchise in North American professional sports. They won six Super Bowl titles in a span of 20 years. They had possibly the greatest coach ever, in Bill Belichick definitely the greatest quarterback ever. And Tom Brady and that shows by him winning a seven Super Bowl in Tampa Bay. They became the Yankees. They became the Montreal Canadiens. They became the Los Angeles Lakers or Boston Celtics. They became the highest profile team in their sport and lost the most hated. However, it was we go way, way back in the day. I'm going to share what it was like to be a fan of the New England Patriots long before the Super Bowl wins long before Brady long before the bell and check back when they were more of a punch line more of a joke. This is what it was like to be a Patriots fan. In the 1980s 15 years before the Patriots first won the Super Bowl in 2001. I was a nine-year-old kid going with my aunt Susan to my first Patriots game at Sullivan Stadium. The Patriots in 1986. had just come off going to the Super Bowl, they made it to the Super Bowl against the Chicago Bears. And boy did they get crushed 46 to 10. The 85 Bears team was one of the best single-season teams in the history of football. So looking back on it now I'm not as surprised. It was wild to see the Patriots make it to the Superbowl mostly because they weren't usually good. They were mediocre at best. Most of the time. They would have flashes of brilliance like they did in 1985, where they went 11-5 with Steve Grogan and Tony Eason and Stanley Morgan and Andre Tippett, but there was no follow up. They didn't go back to the Superbowl until 1996. But in the meantime, tickets were more readily available than they are now. Where there are years long waiting lists to get season tickets. Back then it was usually once a year, maybe in good times, twice a year that I would get to go to these home games with my aunt Susan. Only after being to Gillette Stadium now do I realize how rustic Sullivan Stadium was. They had metal bleachers like you'd see at a high school. So sitting on them, that was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed getting the programs that had features on the players. It had the stats, it had the standings with all the little football helmets and the logos. I was a huge fan of the stats part and the team. And basically like fantasy football, imagining what a team would be like in a different division, or imagining a different player on the team. We'd never really tailgate when we went because I was, you know, nine years old at the youngest. And then the last game I went to see was 1993 I believe. I liked being in there, though, in the crowds. They weren't really sellouts. And because the games will get blacked out in the local market, because the team was so bad when I went to see them starting in 1986. And going up through 1993. These are the records of the New England Patriots. So in 86, they went 11-5, then it was 8-7, 9-7, 5-11, 1-15, 6-10, 2-14, 5-11. The team was terrible. All of you out there that are 30. And under, you have no idea what it was like to have a team that was that bad. The Patriots have been so good for so long, even last year and the 2020 7-9 season. We'd have killed for that in the late 80s, early 90s. That 1990 team that was 1-15 is considered one of the worst single-season teams in the history of the NFL. That being said there were bright spots, believe me, they won almost every game I went to even when they stunk as a team they seem to win when I was there. I got to see them play. The Atlanta Falcons back when they had the blood-red uniforms. The Los Angeles Raiders when they were the LA Raiders with Lyle alzado and Marcus Allen and Bo Jackson. I saw them play all the division teams. So the New York Jets Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, and back then the Indianapolis Colts were part of the AFC East. I believe the Colts game was it was the culture the Falcons were it was pouring rain out. But the Patriots won. I think it was 24-0. And I didn't want to leave because the Patriots never won. So I wanted to stay to the end to see them win. Okay, so I looked it up. It was the Indianapolis Colts, November 22 1987. That's the game it was 24-0 and pouring rain. And I insisted that we stay through it. The most memorable game though, that I went to with the Patriots was when they played the New Orleans Saints. This was November 12 1989. You can actually look up the box score. So basically what happened was, the Saints were up 28 to 10. This game was over. I believe it was the fourth quarter. And this time, you know my aunt Susan was like, Let's beat the traffic. They're done. We get out to her car, she turns on the radio. The Patriots are coming down the field. They score a touchdown, it's 28-17. They do an onside kick, they recover the onside kick. They come right down the field again, they score another touchdown. It's 28-24. They do another onside kick, they recover it again. Now, my aunt, Susan is flipping out because we left and it's 28-24 and they've got the ball, but they did not score again. They lost the game. I just still remember on the radio just her losing her mind because they were going to come make this huge comeback and win and she was going to miss it being out in the car. Back in those days. My favorite player and probably my favorite Patriot player of all time is Andre Tippett number 56. Big old linebacker. He was like the Patriots' version of Lawrence Taylor. If you listen to the podcast, he made my top five favorite Boston athletes of my lifetime. And there's a good reason why. Another fun little aspect of being young and being a fan of the Patriots was that I had an excuse to go around the back of the stadium to where the players would exit after the game. And I had my little autograph book and I would get to meet the players. I'd have my little autograph book. I'd be 9-10-11 years old, and just asking people for their autographs being nine years old. I wasn't exactly big in stature compared to these 350-pound football players walking by. So a funny story is, at one point, I'm out there, I think I was nine years old standing with my little autograph book little kid. And this player just runs me over accidentally just knocked me flat on my ass. He was an offensive tackle named Steve Moore. 6’ 4” right around 300 pounds, flattened me out. And he felt so bad. He picked me up and he was just so apologetic. What he did was he took my autograph book, brought it back inside and had all of the players sign it, including Tony Eason, Steve Grogan, Andre Tippett, Stanley Morgan Irving fryer, and I was fine. But it was just amazing, because he looked even bigger. I mean, someone who's 6’ 4” 300 pounds is huge. But when you're a little nine-year-old, they're even bigger. It's like a tree running you over. He only played until 1987. He was there for years. I think that was the last season that I met him or I met his legacy knocked me over. Sadly, he was actually shot and killed during a robbery outside a convenience store in 1989. He was robbed and shot. I remember that because I'll never forget his name and how nice he was. It's amazing how something like that sticks with you as a kid where he was so nice and helped me up and had gotten me all these autographs. And I still remember, he was pretty much just another guy when it came to the actual football aspect. But the impact he had on me as a nine-year-old, stuck with me even to this day. I remember his name. I remember his kindness and his sad ending. By the time the Patriots got good, which I mean they started to get good in the 90s later 90s When Bill Parcells came along, they went to the Super Bowl with Drew Bledsoe. But then when they had Pete Carroll as the coach, they were gradually stepping down. But the pieces were there to build a Super Bowl champion. It's just even when they want it in 2001. No one expected it. If you could go back to 10-year-old me watching the team that was five and 11 or two and 14. And say when you get into your 20s and 30s, this team is going to be a champion virtually every year or be in the Super Bowl every year. I wouldn't believe it. But I guess you never know about sports. I mean, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were an even bigger joke team than the Patriots. And they've got two Super Bowls in the 21st century. But that's what it was like to go to patriots games be a fan in the late 80s, early 90s, where you had a better chance to see them if you went live than to see them on TV because the games were always blacked out. I always saw the Giants and the Jets. Do you remember what it was like for the Patriots in the 80s? Or maybe even earlier in the 70s? Or are you of the age that you only know them of the six Super Bowl championships? Because you definitely don't appreciate it until you've gone through the time when they were awful. But that was way way back in the day my life as a child and a Patriots fan when they weren't that good.

Closing

That will wrap up episode 39 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who has been tuning in who's been checking out the live stream without a map every Friday. Thank you to those who have been sharing it. September was my second biggest month ever for downloads. So I'm so appreciative because I love doing this. And it makes me feel good if people are actually tuning in and they can relate to some stuff or maybe learn some stuff from my life. We're coming up on one year though it's amazing to think that I've gotten this far. Like I said check out the live streams follow me on Instagram. Check me out on Twitter. I've got a Facebook fan page for the in my footsteps podcast. I've got the blog in my footsteps podcast blog. The most recent Cape Cod New England history post I did was the history of Cape Cod Community College leading up to its inception in 1961. If you want to support the podcast you can always buy me a coffee go to buy me a coffee.com Find the in my footsteps podcast, any donations go to advertising for the podcast. I don't take it and spend it on Chinese food or something. Although that is good. But the best way to support the podcast is just to tell people to spread the word. Share it if you like it, tell people about it. New England based travel in history and lifestyle and retro and all that good stuff. It's like a quilt I stitched together. Be sure to visit where your wish and wear your wishes.com My sister Katie marks has worked so hard on her clothing, apparel accessories company and there's so much more and fun, always supports the family. So I will always promote her on the podcast. And hopefully you go check out her stuff as well. For anyone with sharp ears, if you heard any sort of humming or roaring kind of off in the distance in the background as I recorded this, they were literally cutting down trees right in front of where I live, like right to shut my windows. And basically, now I'm here recording the ending of the podcast. Now they're done. They were there the entire time. I recorded it until the very end. So if you heard it, that's what it was. Tune in next week for episode 40. Holy Lord, we're getting up there in numbers, the 40th episode of the podcast, it's going to be a real fun one too. I've got a lot of good stuff in there. I mentioned at the top of the search for Cape Cod's loneliest grave that's going to kick it off for spooky October stuff. We're going to continue the Road Trip series by going to Winchester, Virginia, another Civil War era type site. We're going to go way way back in the day to the days of 900 numbers and hotlines and the trouble that they can get you in for fleecing you out of money. There'll be a new top five, which are my top five favorite North Shore attractions in Massachusetts, because I love the North Shore, so I want to share them with you. There'll be a new this week in history, including the debut of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and so much more. Coming up next week on episode 40 of the in my footsteps podcast. As we get into fall, as the days get shorter as we get into winter and it gets colder people will be inside more. Just remember to focus on your mental health, your happiness, and lean into the things that make you happy, as long as they're not hurting anyone else What the hell doesn't matter what makes you happy. But the main thing is to just if something's going on, and you need to talk to someone, do that. Take care of your mental health, because it's so important in 2020 and into 2021 now has really put an emphasis on people's mental health. So do that take care of yourself. And like I always say, 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 when that next sunset could be the last sunset. Thank you again to everyone who tuned in through the first 39 episodes next week is 40. And I will see you then have a great week. Check out the livestream Friday. Otherwise I will talk to you all again soon.