Episode 48 is filled with Holiday cheer!
It kicks off with the heartwarming story of the Flying Santa, Edward Rowe Snow. He spent decades delivering gifts to lighthouses and other remote island locations to spread joy.
We take a Road Trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The first of several incredible sights on the Outer Banks is the small town of Duck.
The holiday cheer continues with a journey Back In the Day and the memories of what it was like to be a kid and getting to choose some potential Christmas gifts from the old Sears Wish Book.
There is a new Top 5 featuring the best Christmas movies. It is a companion piece to the top Christmas TV specials from Episode 47.
This Week In History features the mystery of the Mary Celeste, and there's a new Time Capsule.
Be sure to watch for my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 47 here.
Episode 48 is filled with Holiday cheer!
It kicks off with the heartwarming story of the Flying Santa, Edward Rowe Snow. He spent decades delivering gifts to lighthouses and other remote island locations to spread joy.
We take a Road Trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The first of several incredible sights on the Outer Banks is the small town of Duck.
The holiday cheer continues with a journey Back In the Day and the memories of what it was like to be a kid and getting to choose some potential Christmas gifts from the old Sears Wish Book.
There is a new Top 5 featuring the best Christmas movies. It is a companion piece to the top Christmas TV specials from Episode 47.
This Week In History features the mystery of the Mary Celeste, and there's a new Time Capsule.
Be sure to watch for my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 47 here.
Intro
Hello world. Welcome to the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This is episode 48 votes all came in, you spoke. So this week we're going to hear the story of the Flying Santa Edward row snow. We're going to continue on my big east coast road trip with a stop at the little town of Duck, North Carolina on the Outer Banks. We're gonna go way back in the day and remember what it was like to be a child in the 1980s. For Christmas looking at the Sears wish book catalog, there's going to be a new top five this week is the companion piece the top five Christmas movies to go along with last week's Top Christmas TV specials. A brand new this week in history and time capsule and so much more. Coming up right now on episode 48. The in my footsteps podcast. It's funny, I do admit that I expected when I put to the vote last week, the choice between Edward Rowe snow the flying Santa and Edwin Ray snow who was a murderer at the turn of the 20th century down on Cape Cod. I really thought that the true crime one would win out so you imagine my surprise when nobody voted for that one. I guess it's the Christmas season. You want to hear about something Christmassy. But that's alright. I'm sure at some point, Edwin Ray snow story will be heard on this podcast, so you're not gonna miss it, you'll get both I just wanted to see if there was a chance that true crime was as popular as I thought it was. I guess Christmas is more popular. And speaking of Christmas and the Christmas season, have any of you gone out doing the Christmas light drives? I remember that as a kid having my mother and stepfather taking all of us kids out to just drive around and see the Christmas lights. It's something that I feel has been missing in life as I got into being adulthood. It's like Christmas is still special even now at my age. But it was different when you were a kid and everything seems more magical and full of wonder. So the tree Santa's Christmas light drives it all just added up. I found it interesting that just a few days ago, we got the Spotify wrapped thing that will show you what you listen to most on Spotify. And if you're a podcaster, you get the results the opposite way where people listen to your podcast most how many episodes downloads and such. And I found it ironic that I got it a few days ago, December just started literally this episode here is not going to count for my year, because they've already finished the countdown. It was like how do you do that? Why wouldn't it be the first of the new year? Either way, I appreciate everyone who tuned in this year. And last year. I mean, it started in November of 2020. But I'm so grateful to everyone who has taken a few minutes to listen to this podcast. It's definitely a passion project. I say it all the time, travel lifestyle, nostalgia history, it's all things that I enjoy. And I'm glad that I get to share. And you out there especially people that I don't know, family and friends not saying I expect them to listen, but they're more apt to because they know me. But it's the people that have no idea who I am that tuned in and enjoyed what they heard that I really appreciate because that shows that my little niche is growing. And I've got big plans for the podcast for 2022. I'm going to keep going strong. I've got so many more topics like I said, when I first started researching this podcast, I had enough information research to get me through about four years worth of podcasts, and I keep adding new stuff. So we'll see. Right now though, let's kick off episode 48 of the in my footsteps podcast with the story that you all voted for. This is the story of the Flying Santa's named Edward Rowe snow.
Edward Rowe Snow – The Flying Santa
The Christmas holiday season is my favorite time of year. And when the Christmas spirit somehow is combined with a love of lighthouses you can bet them all in the story of Edward row snow combines all the best of people during the holidays with the history and majesty of the iconic beacons that watch over the waters of the world. Why is Edward Rowe snow so fondly remembered he was for more than four decades also known as the flying Santa and here is his story. And rose Snow was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts, August 22 1902. He was above average intelligence from the start, graduating high school in Helena Montana at the age of 16. However, rather than pursue academics snow decided to take a walk in his family's footsteps, he came from a line of sea captains all the way back to the American Revolution. Snow's father had been a captain and his mother's colorful tales of life aboard the ship swayed him. Snow spent nine years traveling the world working on ships and even trying his hand as a Hollywood extra. Incredibly when he decided to go back and finish his education. He did that with the same ease as in high school. So Snow enrolled in Harvard University in 1929 and flew through a curriculum concentrating on history in three years of summer sessions. After graduating in the class of 1932. Edward continued on eventually getting his master's degree in arts from Boston University. He married Anna Merle Hague in 1932. And it seemed as though Snow was settling down. He took a job as a history teacher at Winthrop High School in 1933, where he also coached track football, and basketball. It was during this teaching tenure that Snow's greatest claim to fame was begun. His student bill Winklevoss introduced snow to his father, Captain William Winklevoss. The father and son had been dropping off Christmas gifts via airplane to New England islands and lighthouses since 1929. They had been dubbed the flying Santa. The trips grew in size annually as more people heard of the generous venture and wanted to be involved. Eventually, the wink of paws needed help. In 1936 Snow did his first run alongside the younger winker PA. It was a perfect fit as snow already enjoyed flying though he wasn't a pilot, and he enjoyed taking aerial photos of lighthouses. Now he was able to spread Christmas cheer to those in remote areas at the same time. These trips usually included areas all over New England, and will go sometimes as far as California, Florida and easternmost Canada at the outbreak of World War Two, and we're row snow enlisted in the Air Force, and though he was wounded during the North African campaign of 1942, his love of flying could not be curbed. When snow was discharged from the service, he took over the duties of flying Santa from the wink of pause, as they had other obligations which precluded them from doing it. Snow brought his wife Anna Merle along to help with the deliveries as by 1947. He was visiting as many as 176 lighthouses during the holiday season. So how was this project accomplished? First off, snow flew in small planes like Cessnas, Piper's, constellations, and Seabees. These were flown at altitudes that would be seen as illegal today. This was sacrificing the speed of flight for the accuracy of the delivery. The plane would typically make three passes around a lighthouse wants to signal he was there once to drop the goods down usually small things like a child's doll or candy or perhaps a copy of his latest book, smart marketing, and a final time to make sure that his drop had gone well. The true measure of Edward Rowe Snow was that the gifts as well as the cost of rent the plane all came from his own pocket. The deliveries from the flying Santas meant so much to the families of the lighthouse keepers. Being a major historian Snowbird sometimes returned to the lighthouses to record the stories of the keepers, his love of history, his lifetime of adventures, and his mastery of the written word melded together and made him an enthralling storyteller. This led to snow leaving teaching to become a full-time author and lecturer. By the end of the 1940s. Edward rose Snow was no amateur. His first book, based on his college thesis, was released in 1935. He had great interest in Boston Harbor and its islands. It was on boating trips out in the water of the harbor that he found countless artifacts like coins and discovered shipwrecks. In his lifetime, snow wrote more than 90 books, many showcasing New England's bountiful history. He parlayed that experience into a job writing for The Patriot Ledger newspaper in Quincy from 1957 to 1982. As he grew older snow's story and his achievements were recognized and appreciated. In 1972, he received an honorary doctorate degree from Nasaan College in Springville, Maine was the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. His love of the islands of Boston Harbor led to snow using his influence to save George's island from becoming a hazardous waste dump. Today, the 53-acre island, which is home to Civil War era Fort Warren, along with the other 33 islands of Boston Harbor are combined they're a national and state park. Though it is hard to pin down one thing, Edward Rowe Snow was mainly known for his years as the flying Santa made him nationally known. He continued the tradition begun by Captain Winklevoss until a stroke on July 24 1981, left him unable to perform his beloved duties. That Christmas, the flying Santa baton was passed a whole Massachusetts resident Ed McCabe, the Santa suit was formally presented to Mackay by snows wife and daughter as a symbolic passing of the torch. And that tradition still continues to this day. And because it's 2021 you can go to their website and see more about it at flying santa.org Edward Rowe snow battled illness in his remaining months and never fully recovered from his stroke. He died at University Hospital in Boston on April 10 1982. At the age of 79. He was buried on a knoll in the hills of Marshfield overlooking the ocean, in addition to being memorialized all across New England and beyond snow is celebrated with the day in his honor every year in August on George's Island. Though he was not the originator, and not the only one to do it. snows more than four decades as the flying Santa helped give him almost a mythical quality when combined with his treasure hunting, writing and storytelling. He helped keep the magic of Christmas alive for many over the years. Even if he never flew over their heads. Edward Rowe snow captured the hearts and minds of those he came in contact with. And his memory is still strong in these parts nearly 40 years after his passing.
Road Trip: Duck, NC
It’s road trip time again, as we continue following my path on my epic sixth day, 2100 mile road trip from two years ago. In the past, we've gone out through the Berkshires, Massachusetts through New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia. Now we have reached the coast again, this is going to be a look at the small town of Duck North Carolina on the Outer Banks. The Outer Banks of North Carolina are simply amazing. It was the end game of this entire road trip was to get to Cape Hatteras and Cape Hatteras lighthouse, but that will be coming up in a future episode. This was my introduction to the Outer Banks duck North Carolina is located about 75 miles south of Norfolk, Virginia. And it's a small town. For those of you that remember in Episode 39, I talked about Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, I believe that's still the smallest town that I've ever featured on the road trip. But Duck North Carolina is pretty close. As of 2019, it's year-round population is 583. But don't let that fool you. Because like most vacation destinations, like Cape Cod, the population swells in the summer. So in the summer, the population of Duck North Carolina gets to be over 20,000. That's roughly 34 times the size of the population in the winter. That's wild. And much like in Episode 2007, when I did a road trip to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, the town of Duck is very small in actual physical size. It's only 3.72 square miles, as most of the Outer Banks is this long, Sandy spit. There's no real mass to it. In fact, at its widest point, duck is less than three-quarters of a mile in width. So it's really small. It's like a matchstick. I remember how excited I was when I got to the Outer Banks. I was kind of just lucky that I ended up in Duck. It wasn't a place that was on my list, but now it's in the podcast lore. So what happens is you take route 158, South Pass Norfolk into North Carolina, and then you've got to cross over to get to the Outer Banks. When you cross the right Memorial Bridge across Currituck Sound. For me being from Cape Cod, it was like going home it was similar to crossing the Sagamore or born bridges to come across the Cape Cod canal because after spending a few days driving through mountains and farms and fields and historic Civil War sites to get back to something familiar, it really struck home and it made me appreciate it more. I also had to laugh because we're crossing over the right Memorial Bridge and it's just beautiful. It looks like an island paradise and the weather was really nice. And then right as I'm crossing, there's Walmart, of course, is a Walmart, it doesn't matter where what I did once I got to Duck was I got onto Route 12, also called Ocean Boulevard. And I just drove very similar to what I do on Cape Cod. For anyone that follows me on Instagram and sees my pictures that I get on Cape Cod from these random small spots. I always say even with these, take your car and just drive and let it go where it takes you. I did that in Duck. So I'm going through just neighborhoods that are oceanfront while everything's ocean from there, and naturally finding places where they weren't private. So it would look bad with a Massachusetts license plate. Being in these private places. In North Carolina. It's like you're just sending up a red flag for people to call the cops on you. It's so easy to find a beautiful beachfront area, though. And that's not just me saying it. The little town of duck is regularly on some of the national best beaches lists. And that includes Travel Channel, which has had them on their best beach directory. Although it's small Duck still has a lot of shopping, dining, hiking, naturally surfing, kayaking, kiteboarding and just swimming in the beaches. One thing though, that I noticed because I stayed on the Outer Banks for a couple of days, is that in places like duck, they don't really have hotels, or motels. It's mainly Airbnbs renting vacation homes. When I went there and stayed. I didn't stay in Duck I stayed down a few towns over in Kill Devil Hills. Luckily, it's not that far. So if you go to Duck or southern shores or Corolla, or one of these places, you can stay nearby. If there's nothing in town to stay at. I would recommend visiting outer banks.com and kind of searching through what they've got in there for vacation listings. If you're interested in checking out the Outer Banks, which I definitely think you should. There are companies like sun Realty and beach Realty and construction that have places listed you can find them on the Outer Banks website. If you go there and you're not interested in just hanging out at the beach the whole time. I mean, honestly, you're in the wrong place. But there are other things to do and see. There is the Duck town park and boardwalk, which is 11 acres in the heart of duck. And it's got a maritime forest, Willow swamp and an open lawn with an amphitheater and the amphitheater hosts a lot of free town events like Fourth of July celebrations and October's Duck Jazz Festival. The town of duck is a place for family fun sound side activities, natural beauty, awesome music and stunning sunsets. The town Boardwalk and Park is easy to find just off of Route 12. You can also visit town of duck.com and get more information. As far as places to eat. There are restaurants scattered up and down the Outer Banks but in Duck, there's a little place called doughnuts on a stick ice cream. And these are wild Made to Order donuts donut sundaes and sandwiches. They're located at 1216 Duck Road, which is also highway route 12 or donuts on a stick.net and donuts is spelled with a Z d o n u tz if you want to figure out the next few episodes of the podcast as far as the road trip, it's going to be all outer bank-centric, and you're going to hear me rave a lot about it. Because honestly, it's like a sister area to Cape Cod. So it's what I'm used to growing up. But then it's also got its own unique quirks to it. They have the typical tourist trap souvenir shop Super Wings. And for anyone that grew up on Cape Cod, I believe we had wings like regular wings stores down here. So it's similar to what we were used to in the 90s maybe early 2000s Oh, I stopped in there and got some Outer Banks merch for people in the family. And even though I didn't stop at it, they had a drive-thru convenience store called breeze through and when I was driving down the road and I saw it at first I thought it was a car wash. And then I saw it. It looks like a lot of vending machines lined up I should have gone through just to experience it but yeah, drive-thru convenience store who knew but whether you're there for the beach or for hiking or shopping or restaurants or just enjoying the weather doc North Carolina and the entire outer banks, you have to go and visit them at least once. It was the end game of my road trip and I was so excited when I finally arrived there and saw the beach and there'll be so much more to come in the coming weeks on the podcast with the rest of my time in the Outer Banks. Next week I'll be hitting up the neighboring town of southern shores on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. So I hope you'll come back and I hope you enjoy the Outer Banks because you're gonna get a lot coming up in the next few weeks
Sponsor: Wear Your Wish
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This Week In History
This week in history, we're going back 149 years ago, December 5 1872. Since we didn't get the Edward Ray snow True Crime part of this podcast, I figured I would take a chance that that might not win the vote and give you a ghost story instead. This is going to be the story of the fate of the Mary Celeste. The Mary Celeste is one of the most famous abandoned ship stories in history. It was December 5 1872 When a British ship the DeGrazia, which was about 400 miles east of the Azores off of Portugal spotted the Mary Celeste just drifting. It had been destined for Genoa, Italy from New York City. And when the British ship Captain David Morehouse, sent people aboard to check out the ship because they didn't respond to any calls or anything. They found nobody on board. The ship's only lifeboat was missing. And one of its two pumps had been disassembled, there were three and a half feet of water in the ship's bottom. Although the cargo of 1700 barrels of industrial alcohol was largely intact, and there was still a six-month supply of food and water on board. But there was nobody on board no people being that it's been over 140 years there's been so many different theories as to what happened to the crew of 10 people that had sailed aboard the ship. theories have gone they've run the gamut from plausible to ridiculous. There's been theories about mutiny to pirates to sea monsters to killer waterspouts famed writer Arthur Conan Doyle's 1884 short story was based on the idea that it was a vengeful ex-slave, a 1935 movie starring Bela Lugosi, he was on board as a homicidal sailor. There have even been stories and it was around at the time that the de Gracia the British ship, they were trying to get insurance payment like a salvager. Basically, there were people that were thinking that maybe the people that found the ship were actually responsible for the missing crew themselves. The last recordings in the logbook were from November 25, leading most to believe that the ship was abandoned or the crew was lost around that time. It was recorded that there were rough seas winds of more than 35 knots. Most experts don't think that was enough to make the captain abandon ship. There is some conjecture that after coming through the storm, the captain was within sight of the Azores Island of Santa Maria, and that he may have just said, let's just go for the island and just not risk it. But the truth may never be known. The Smithsonian mag.com has a great article about the story of the Mary Celeste that I highly recommend you check out that's what I researched for this segment. But regardless of what happened to the ship, it was discovered abandoned off the coast of the Azores in Portugal 149 years ago, this week in history. And now it is time for another time capsule. We're going back 55 years ago this week, December 10 1966. It's like throwing a dart at a calendar in history. I just picked a random date. Let's see what was going on then. The number one song was Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. Good Vibrations was released as a single not really with any particular album. But this song took from what they had learned as a band from the Pet Sounds album which was just this wild kind of psychedelic Wall of Sound, a different type of music. This was the Beach Boys' third number-one hit after I get around and help me Rhonda and it will be their last number one song for 22 years until they had Kokomo come out from the cocktail album in 1988. The number one movie was the professionals. This was a Western starring Lee Marvin Burt Lancaster Jack pallets and more. It made $19.5 million at the box office and has an 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The number one TV show was Bonanza, this Western television show ran from 1959 to 1973 and totaled 431 episodes. The show took place between 1861 and 1867 and centered around the Cartwright family who lived in Virginia City, Nevada, right on Lake Tahoe. It was the number-one show on TV from 1964 to 1967 and only fell out of the top 10 and ratings in 1971. So it had pretty good staying power. And if you were a young lady back December 10 1966, and you had an interest in some nice comfortable evening where you could get a nice pair of pink hand-crocheted boudoir slippers with multicolored sequins out of the Sears catalog for $2.97 or about $25. Today, I included that because the picture of what they look like they are definitely I don't know if they were a big seller, but they are pretty hideous looking if you go and find a Sears catalog from 1966. But stay tuned for the back end of the day segment I'll give you more info on how to find the old catalog and wish books. But that wraps up another time capsule another this week in history. Now we're gonna dive into a new top five, this is the companion to last week's Top Five Christmas TV specials. We're gonna jump in right now to my picks for the top five Christmas movies.
Top 5: Christmas Movies
This was a list I definitely had an easy time coming up with but then a hard time narrowing it down. So I had a lot of movies that made the overall list and then I had to whittle it down. So I've got several honorable mentions. These are the movies to me that I can't go a Christmas season without watching. And who knows you may have honorable mentions that might be your top five and vice versa. And but that's the whole thing is that the top five is meant to be in no particular order because there's already enough discussion that goes on just with my picks. So enough with the suspense. Here are my honorable mentions. As far as Christmas movies go, and they include Scrooged, A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Die Hard. Any or all of those could be on your top five lists. I know a Christmas story gets played 24 hours straight at this time of year. And die hard is one of those that in recent years, it's been pretty much proven that it's a Christmas movie even though you wouldn't think of it. So we're off to a roaring start. There are my honorable mentions for you to dissect. But let's dive into the actual top five Christmas movies. Number one, it's a wonderful life. This is probably one of the only times that I'll say that what I put at number one is my number one pick. I usually say in no particular order, but it's a wonderful life is my favorite Christmas movie and one of my favorite movies ever period. It stars Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey who is a man who's down on his luck? He wonders what life would be like if he was never born and he gets to see the world without him and comes to realize what an important part of so many lives he's been. It's one of those movies that even though it's over 70 years old, it stands up today and it's something I definitely recommend you check out. Number two is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as it's the third installment following the Griswolds. Although this one they don't actually go anywhere. They just have the family over for Christmas. And there are so many fun and memorable moments in this movie, like cousin Eddie emptying his RVs septic tank into the sewer out in front of the house. When Chevy Chase goes nuts and starts punching and kicking the Santa and the reindeer. The giant Christmas tree with the squirrel inside. So many. You just have to watch it if you haven't seen it. I don't know where you've been, but go watch it. Number three is Home Alone starring Macaulay Culkin Catherine O'Hara John Candy. This one is legendary. Also it's from 1990 when a young boy gets left home alone while his family goes on vacation. And these robber show up Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, the Wet Bandits, and it devolves to Macaulay Caulkin's character just setting all these traps for them as they try to get in the house. The flame thrower, the hot doorknob, the nail on the steps as he's walking up them. I was 13 when this movie came out, so I could definitely relate to his enthusiasm at first when his family was all gone. And he has the run of the house because I grew up to there was five of us kids, two parents, two dogs, two cats, so imagining being home alone was a thrill. Oh, and by the way, there have been six Home Alone movies six of them. Only the first two had Macaulay Culkin and all the rest. They're just so stupid looking. The video covers all have different little boys with their hands over their cheeks with the mouth wide open. Like oh my god, they must be just terrible. Number four on my list of top five Christmas movies is Elf. It stars Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf and James Caan is his dad, where he comes from the North Pole to find his actual family and just gets into all sorts of high jinks and shenanigans. Most of what Will Ferrell does is great anyway, so him being in the movie just makes it a must-see. That's more of a recent one. It's from 2003. So I would expect a lot of you know that one more than it's a wonderful life, but I highly recommend it if you haven't seen elf. And finally, number five on the list is gremlins. This is sort of similar to Die Hard, where you don't think of it as a Christmas slash holiday movie. But it is it stars Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates and it has Howie Mandel is the voice of gizmo, the Mogwai who when he gets wet creates the Gremlins like Stripe, it's at best a black comedy where there's a lot of not too terrible gore. But I mean, if you're putting a gremlin in a blender and one in the microwave, it's gonna make a mess. As a kid when this came out in 1984, it both thrilled me and terrified me. But to this day, it's one of my favorite Christmas holiday movies. And that's my top five Christmas movies. What did you think of that? Are the honorable mentions better than my top five? Have you seen all of these? It's a Wonderful Life. Christmas Vacation Home Alone, elf gremlins. If you haven't, go check them out. You got plenty of time, while Christmas is still ahead of us. And I'll be back next week with another top five that will be probably have something else to do with the Christmas season.
Back In the Day: Sears Wish Book
The Christmas Season The holiday season is the most magical time of the year when you're a child. There's nothing better than making a list of things that you would like toys usually that you want and then seeing them under the Christmas tree, either from parents or other relatives or from Santa himself. One great thing about being a child of the 80s was the ways that you could choose what you wanted for gifts. Sure, there will be plenty of commercials on TV that would show you things give you ideas, but there's a better way and it's pretty much lost in this day and age with technology, and that's the Sears wish book catalog that came out around the Christmas season and was used for kids and really people of all ages to find things they wanted for Christmas from Sears when they were one of the biggest department stores in the world. I fondly remember those Sears wish book days and I'm going to share some of what it's all about what it meant to me, and where you can go and find them now and reminisce yourself. If you go to Sears archives.com You're going to find a lot of history about the wish book. The first Sears wish book was known as the Sears Christmas book catalog and that came out in 1933. Some of the great toys and included the Miss pigtails doll and electric toy automobile which was battery powered a Mickey Mouse watch fruitcakes, Lionel electric trains, a five-pound box of chocolates, and live singing canaries. I wonder what kids got back then if they wanted any of that stuff. Interestingly, though, the wish book came out in 1933. There had actually been a Sears catalog since 1896. And even that included wax candles for Christmas trees. So Sears and Christmas went hand in hand from all the way back in the late 19th century. That 1933 Christmas book catalog was 87 pages. Contrast that with the 1968 wish book, which was 605 pages long. It's like a phone book, just filled with 225 pages of toys, 380 pages of adult gifts, and adult I mean like grown-ups not adult like triple X, by the way for a laugh when I was doing the time capsule segment. And I researched good vibrations, The Beach Boys song, the first thing that popped up was an adult store and ad for it. Good Vibrations. So there you go. I wanted to make sure you had to deal with that imagery just like me. Even though Sears is basically defunct now and gone out of business, thanks to places like Walmart and Target, you can go to sears.com/wish book, they have an online now I don't know how useful it is, if it would be similar to kind of going to Amazon I guess. But they had tried to get with the times in 1998. Launching wish book.com to try to keep up with the digital age. When I think of the Sears wish book, I think of being a kid in the mid-1980s, late 1980s. And getting to look at it and pick out at least one or two things. I don't remember specifics. My mother told me the other day that she used to have to get more than one wish book because there were five kids and we would fight over not being able to read and see what we wanted. Talk about not being able to share. I can't remember specifically, but I can guarantee you that at least one of us five kids whacked another one of the five with one of those wish books at some point, I promise you, for all of you that are my age or older or those that are curious about the wish book. I've got some great news. Go to wishbook web.com. They've got so many digitized Sears wish book catalogs. I was losing my mind going and checking them out. I mean, how do you think I found those boudoir slippers from the time capsule segment? That was from the actual 1966 wish book. And yeah, I specifically looked for something that was kind of foolish and outdated. That's why I put it in, you can go to this website, and you can click on they've got them in chronological order. Currently, they have more than 25,000 pages of the catalog. The oldest one on the site is from 1937. And lucky for me and the people of my generation, every single one from the 1980s is there. So for example, I pulled up the 1986 Sears wish book, it's 697 pages. That's a lot of stuff. Just imagine the stimulation, the overload in a child's mind, seeing I mean granted, it wasn't all stuff for kids but at least a couple of 100 pages of toys back then looking at it you had to just swipe through all the pages to find what you wanted because they would have collected just like any other catalog. Now with the website with wish book web.com You can just type in a search and find what you want. It's a lot of fun and you're going to go down the rabbit hole as you start to swipe through. If you're on the website either on a laptop or a smartphone, you're gonna laugh at some of the 80s fashions. But go back to the 30s and see what was considered high-tech. I don't know, when the Sears wish book fell out of fashion, at least in my family. I don't have any memories of looking through it in high school. And I started high school in 1992. So it's got to be before then. Or maybe I just got too old and I didn't care. And it got to the point where by then my parents were just getting me either money or clothes. These catalogs are definitely a snapshot of the time though, the fashion the toys. On the website, the most recent Sears wish book is from 1991, they have a couple of newer ones. But those are the JC Penney catalog, those are kind of sprinkled in there as well. It's overloading just looking at them. Now. These wish books from the 1980s, I could only imagine my parents having to deal with five kids with all their ideas of things they wanted for Christmas. I honestly don't know how they did it. Because I could the five of us growing up, we fought all the time. And I'm sure Christmas was no different. I'm sure that my mother and stepfather were like, just for this time of year just being nice to each other. And here we are fighting over the Sears wish book. It brought back so many good memories though, even though I don't remember what I chose from the different years, or really even going through the catalog that much I can look through and imagine what it was I wanted just based on my age and the time. And I'm sure it's gonna make you fall down the rabbit hole. As I said, it's fun if you've got free time to just go and figure out your age when you either last believed in Santa, or when you really got interested in getting your own stuff for Christmas. Because when your little parents can just buy you stuff and just say this is what you like, play with it. But if you're in the mood for a nice trip down memory lane, go to wish book web.com Pick out one of the Sears wish books, grab some hot chocolate, sit with the Christmas lights on the tree and just go through the pages and remember either getting something from those wish books or laughing at some of the fashion that's so out of place now. Do you have memories of the Sears wish book? Did you or your siblings? Did you get to go through it and pick stuff out? Did you fight over the catalog was it like my mom having to get several of them just so us kids would just shut the hell up and not fight over it. As much as I enjoy the technology that we have today. I'm still of the age that I can remember the thrill of things like a Sears wish book. And I kind of do wish we had things like that still. But at least with this website, you can kind of dip your toes back into those days.
Closing
We've come to the end of episode 48 of the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for tuning in, whether it's weekly or every now and then or if this is your first time. Thank you so much. If you can't get enough of my sultry sounds on the podcast, tune in every Friday at 8pm on Instagram, that's my live stream without a map, we dive a little deeper into the podcast, and things go off the rail as I get family and friends come into the chat and we just have a good laugh. It's a lot of fun. And it's a way to connect with people, whether friends and family are just fans of the podcast. So I love it. It is the holiday season. So if you are interested in any of my six books that are currently out, local travel and history, check out Christopher setterlund.com. My website is run by my oldest friend Barry Menard. It's got links to all of the books, even through Amazon, you can go through Schiffer Publishing, Arcadia Publishing, any of the local Cape Cod bookstores have them too, if you're interested, and this is going to be kind of dated if you hear this too long in the future. But if you're interested in my iconic hotels and motels of Cape Cod book, I have a few copies in my possession, you can DM me through Instagram. And if you're interested, I could sign a copy send it to you. I'm going to put a blast out on social media also, just to see because I've got a lot of merch that my publishing company gave me it's like postcards and bookmarks and all that. And I can include those in as well. It's funny with these, especially the last three books, I get this package full of this promo merchandise. Like what am I gonna do with all these there are hundreds of little business card size covers of the book, I bring them to all my signings, but with stupid COVID It's like I haven't had that many book events in public. So I'm just collecting all of these. Email me at Christopher setterlund@gmail.com If you have any questions like I said, if you're interested in the new book find me on social media, Twitter, Instagram, I got a Facebook fan page, and subscribe on YouTube. I'm trying to do content there. But this time of year, it's hard because you want to go do 4k New England videos and everything looks terrible and barren and dead because it's December. So I need to wait for a nice snow to go out and shoot some videos. Come and find me at Mind Body spine Chiropractic in Brewster right on Route 6A, I do some personal training in there. In addition to my in-home personal training, you can come in, get checked out by the amazing Dr. Michael Singleton, and then come in and see me he gets just straightened out, I keep you straightened out and be on the lookout for Coach KO Kailyn Orr who is also a part of the team. There was nobody that I could have thought of that was better to come in and join our team as we're going to be opening a small class gym the early part of next year. And we needed someone with the positive manic energy to come in with those classes and coach Kayo who you've heard me interview on the podcast before she was perfect for that. Visit the in my footsteps podcast blog@blogger.com Now that Instagram has gotten with the times and allows me to share links I put a lot of links to my articles up there. I recently did a post on sure Dan's country kitchen from Hyannis. So you Cape Cotters that grew up here in the 70s and 80s. You'll remember it wanted to give my cousin Donna a shout-out for her birthday, which will have just passed when this comes out. She has been one of my biggest supporters as far as my books go coming down from Rockland to some of my events driving an hour to see me do events, which I really appreciate. So happy birthday, even though it's just past. And just remember in this time of year, the holiday season, I mean, it's my favorite time of year. But it can be tough dealing, if you're away from family, the shorter days when it's cloudy and gray. Just focus on the things that make you happy. I've been going through the old VHS tapes that I recorded in high school when I wanted to be a film director, editing some of the old skits I did with my friends John and Barry, and just sharing them with them because that makes me happy. It's a connection to something familiar, gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling whatever it is for you. Lean into that. And if this podcast gives you that warm and fuzzy it makes you feel good. I'm so appreciative. And I'll keep doing them. And I'll wish you happy holidays right now even though I'll be back next week for episode 49. I still want to wish you happy holidays. Merry Christmas. And thank you all again so much for tuning in. And remember in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path. And enjoy every moment you can on this journey because you never know when the next sunset is the last sunset. It's better to live love and laugh than to have regrets. I thank you again. I will see you all again next week for episode 49. Check out the live stream Friday at 8am. Otherwise, have a great weekend and I will talk to you all again soon.