In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 115: Visiting Salem MA for Halloween, Staying Home Sick From School in the 1980s & 1990s; Revisiting Provincetown's Secret Smallpox Cemetery; Weird MA Laws(10-11-2023)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 115

Share episode

Send us a text

Episode 115 takes a trip to possibly the perfect place in America to visit for the Halloween season: Salem, Massachusetts. This week's Road Trip is filled with witches, spooky cemeteries, possible haunted houses, and so much more. If you enjoy this time of year Salem is for you!
We go way Back In the Day and reminisce about the good and bad about staying home sick from school in the 1980s and 1990s. Sure there was no internet, no cell phones, no streaming, but there was an endless supply of game shows, sappy daytime television, and if all else was lost, a stack of VHS tapes.
The spooky season is continued as we revisit the sad and somber secret smallpox cemetery of Provincetown. In a laugh-out-loud moment, only after I finished recording and editing this episode did I discover I had previously spoken about this topic. Though still a fascinating subject it is in fact the first rerun on the podcast.
The Top 5 sees us wrap up the weird laws of the New England states as we look at the weirdly specific yet totally random laws brought forth by my home state, Massachusetts.
Of course, there will be a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule focusing on the on-screen debut of comedy legends Laurel and Hardy.

Helpful Links from this Episode

Listen to Episode 114 here 

Support the show

Speaker 00:

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 115. We're chugging through October, through the Halloween season. We're going to continue the spooky and creepy as we talk about Provincetown's secret smallpox cemetery and the story behind it. We're going to take a road trip to probably the number one place to go in this country for the Halloween season, Salem, Massachusetts. We're going to go way, way back in the day and talk about the horrors of staying home sick from school in the 1980s and 90s, way before internet There's going to be a brand new top five as we wrap up the Weird Laws series from New England, as we look at the top five weird Massachusetts laws. And of course, there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule, all coming up right now on episode 115 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Have the leaves started to change where you are? Northern New England, I'm figuring you've got all the colors, but if you're further south in the United States, I don't know if leaves ever change for you down there. It makes for some easy, beautiful photography. If you live in New England, I highly recommend taking some fall foliage drives. If you're looking for some inspiration for the fall foliage drives, go back to episode 87. I do a whole segment on the best roots to take at this time of year to capture all those colors. I want to take a moment, as I do, to thank you all for listening to the podcast, for sharing it. Subscriptions are now open. The links are in the description of the podcast through Patreon and Buzzsprout, which is my hosting platform for the podcast. You get exclusive episodes recorded just for you who subscribe. And there will likely be more exclusive stuff, podcast merch... Maybe things to do with my books and writing, digital art, I don't know. Any suggestions are welcome. Those of you that subscribe to other podcasts, or maybe those of you that are listening that have your own Patreon page, what do you do for your subscribers? Thank you to everyone who came out and stopped by my table at Read Books last week in Harwichport. For those of you waiting for my next presentation... I'll be at the Falmouth Library on Tuesday, October 24th at 6.30 p.m. speaking about searching for The Lady of the Dunes, my book, The Lady of the Dunes case, the documentary, and all the revelations that came from it. And I'll share that again next week for those that are interested in coming out to it. And if there's anybody listening from a bookstore, local bookstore, local library, send me a message, ChristopherSatterlund at gmail.com. I'm setting up events through the end of the year, the beginning of next year. It's a rare anomaly that I have three new books that came out all around the same time. So I'm going to milk this for all it's worth. I don't have any other book projects in the works currently. So I'm going to take advantage of the three new books that came out in 2023. Let's dive right into this podcast, though. Continuing the Halloween theme, the creepy and spooky season. with the sad and somber tale of Provincetown's secret smallpox cemetery coming up right now on episode 115 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases ever known to mankind. Its roots were traced back as far as the 3rd century BCE in the Middle East. Symptoms of smallpox included fever and vomiting, with the development of painful, fluid-filled sores, which typically would scab over. Though it was not an automatic death sentence, the mortality rate of smallpox was about 30%, according to the Center for Disease Control. Unfortunately, the mortality rates of smallpox were higher in children. A vaccination was first discovered in 1798 by British physician Edward Jenner. Despite this, the disease would continue to ravage the world before ultimately being eradicated. The last known case of smallpox was diagnosed in October 1977, with the ailment finally being declared wiped out in 1980. which that is fascinating because smallpox seems like such an old historic illness, a historic disease, but yet it was only declared as eradicated 43 years ago. Long before the victory over smallpox, countless millions of people worldwide died from the disease. It impacted every area of the world, including Cape Cod. There is the legend of Mr. Thomas Ridley, who if you haven't heard Me speak of him in the podcast before. A quick summary. He was a man who contracted smallpox in the 1770s in Provincetown and was buried alone deep in the woods of Truro behind what is now Montana's restaurant on Route 6. Then there was also the story of Thomas Freeman. a skilled physician who contracted and died of the virus in 1766 and was buried in a solo grave in a field near his property along the Orleans-Chatham town line. Dr. Samuel Lord, who battled smallpox alongside Freeman during that time, also died of the disease and is buried in a grave which sits precariously close to the busy Training Field Road in Harwich. That one is a very weird site. I have a photo of it. I'll try to remember to share on social media so you can see this gravestone right by this busy road. And there is also even an isolated smallpox cemetery in Chatham along Old Comers Road in a conservation area. With all of these connections to smallpox on Cape Cod, there may be none more somber than the smallpox cemetery in Provincetown. Located only a couple of hundred yards north of Route 6 in Provincetown, near Shank Painter Road, this cemetery is obscured and overgrown, hardly befitting one's final resting place. However, it's the fear of smallpox that led to such a sad ending. The stones, no more than 18 inches tall, hide in the nook between a rather steep hillside and the wetland area surrounding Duck Pond. The stones are numbered. There are no names. And when the last person was laid to rest there, they numbered 14. The story and history of this final resting place can be traced back 150 years. During the times when smallpox was still a formidable disease, a small 8 by 10 foot treatment building called a pestilence house or pest house was built a few hundred yards north of present day Route 6 around 1848. It was meant to keep those infected safely away from the rest of the town. Shortly thereafter, a vaccination for smallpox was developed but not routinely used due to the fear over effects from such a vaccination. By 1873, Dr. Horatio G. Newton, a consultant to the Provincetown Board of Health, had felt the disease was eradicated in town due to stricter isolation and vaccination rules. Unfortunately, in the time in between, many in town died from outbreaks. Between 1855 and 1873, 14 people died of smallpox at the pest house. Each of the people who died was buried in a numbered stone, perhaps to spare their families backlash from other townspeople. The pest house itself was removed shortly after the final death in 1873, though a large cellar hole remains at the head of the graves where the pest house once stood. As smallpox became a thing of the past during the early to mid-20th century, the small cemetery became overgrown, forgotten, and the majority of the stones were damaged. As of the last time that I visited this area, which was 2022, only four stones remain in good condition, numbers 5, 6, 9, and 10. Sadly, the names of those buried there seem to have vanished with time as well, leaving them all as unknowns. The legend of the cemetery grew throughout the 20th century, and finally, the poor souls buried in the woods would regain their names. In 1980... The book, Provincetown, Massachusetts, Cemetery Inscriptions, was written by author Lorana Higgins Clark. Thanks to her research, a further light was shined on those buried in the cemetery. The names of those who died of smallpox and are buried there go in order of the stones. Number one, Adam Dyer. Number two, John Roberts. Number three, Monson W. Barnard. Number four, Elizabeth Hill. Number five, Kenneth Ferguson. Number six, Antone Domingo. Number seven, Mary Rogers. Number eight, George G. Hallett. Number nine, Tamsen Manuel. Number 10, Frank Safrine. Number 11, Manuel Tercera. In 2015, a simple granite marker was unveiled at the Winthrop Street Cemetery in Provincetown, commemorating those who rest in the small cemetery off of Route 6. Although smallpox has been wiped out for more than four decades, its connection to Cape Cod history is everlasting. I can tell you from my experience that finding this cemetery is a chore in and of itself. There is a fire road at Shankpander Road, roughly in the area where you need to go, but there are no signs, there are no pathways leading you to the cemetery. I found it similar to when I was trying to find the grave of Thomas Ridley, where you just set aside a lot of time and walk and just keep going back and forth, and eventually you will find it. Thomas Ridley's grave in Truro is in a bit of a clearing, so you can spot it a little bit of a ways away. The overgrown smallpox cemetery in Provincetown might be harder to find due to the fact that it resides in this kind of little valley and the stones are 18 inches tall, but they're rectangular in shape. And due to the brush and the overgrown area and the leaves, it's hard to spot these stones, especially considering that only four of them really remain. The other 10 stones are in various degrees of damage. Some of them are broken off halfway down. Some of them are broken off all the way near the ground. And like I said, they're only numbered. There's no names. So up until doing this research, I had no idea who these people were. That's what I found when I visited this smallpox cemetery a couple of times now. I even shot a 4K video that I can share in the podcast description so you can see it for yourself. But interestingly, much like visiting Thomas Ridley's grave, it wasn't spooky or scary. It was more somber and sad. Because just like Thomas Ridley, these 14 people, they're real people. They just happened to catch one of the deadliest diseases known to mankind. And they're laid in this valley with no names on their stones in an area near wetlands. And it's a sad end when you think about these people were like you and me with lives and families. And this is where they ended up. Because it's deep in the woods like this, several hundred yards deep in the woods, it's forgotten. And even now... Once this podcast segment ends, it'll likely be forgotten again. But hopefully someday the cemetery can be cleaned up and they can be given proper stones with names. But I know that's wishful thinking. If you choose to try to go visit this cemetery, just be careful. It is not an easy hike down to the actual graves. Better yet, visit the granite marker at Winthrop Street Cemetery in Provincetown. That's a little safer. and just look at the names of those 14 poor souls and be so glad that smallpox was eradicated more than 40 years ago. When it comes to the best places to visit for the Halloween season, there's no better place to go in New England and maybe the entire country than the town of Salem, Massachusetts. I'm sure me just saying that name conjures up images likely of the Salem witch trials in colonial America. And there is a lot of history to see in Salem besides its connection to the witch trials and to the spooky and the Halloween season. But I did want to focus on that. And that's really why I have it shared in this week's road trip in the October month in time for Halloween. For those of us that grew up in New England and that live in this area, it might even seem almost cliche to go to visit Salem during this time of year. But there's a reason why it's so popular and gets so many thousands of visitors this time of year. For those of you looking to go to Salem in the next few weeks, there's no shortage of things to see and do. In fact, there are several websites dedicated just to these events this time of year. There's hauntedhappenings.org, salemhalloweencity.com, and salem.org that all have lists of things to see and do. As far as the nuts and bolts of the town of Salem go... As of 2021, it had a population of 44,819, and it's located a little more than 20 miles north of Boston and a little less than 60 miles southeast of Manchester, New Hampshire. If you've been to Salem before, you probably have an idea of what you want to see and what you want to do when you go there. But if you've never been and this is going to be your first time, you might want to do a guided walking tour. Visit Salem.org and check out the Salem Ghosts Walking Tour. They do it either during the day or at night, a nighttime pub crawl, hitting up all of these possibly haunted spots and ones that have connections to the witch trials. I can't keep mentioning the Salem Witch Trials and not give you kind of a CliffsNotes version of what it is for those of you that may have no idea what it was or want a little more detail and a refresher. Between February 1692 and May 1693, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft. There were numerous arrests in Salem and the nearby towns of Andover and Topsfield and Danvers, which was then known as Salem Village. In this mass hysteria over purported witchcraft, 30 people were found guilty. 19 people were executed via hanging with one man, Giles Corey, being killed via pressing because he refused to enter a plea. If you don't know what pressing is, think of it as being put under a large plank of wood with stones piled on you over and over and over until eventually the weight is so much that you literally get crushed. The witchcraft hysteria was not unique to Salem and the North Shore of Massachusetts. Between the years of 1400 and 1782, between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed under suspicion of witchcraft, with most of them being in Europe. Located at 24 Liberty Street is the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. It's a little park with four foot high granite walls and benches, with each bench having the name of someone executed, how they died, and when they died. If you're there visiting the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, you should also visit the Witch Museum at 19 1⁄2 Washington Square North. Also visit SalemWitchMuseum.com. They've got so much information. including documents from the witch trials that are, you know, 330 years old. The museum is open year-round, but they have extended hours during October, naturally, including 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturdays during October. And it might be wise to purchase tickets ahead of time, knowing how popular this area is, especially this time of year. Another obvious stop for those of you visiting Salem is the House of Seven Gables. It's located at 115 Derby Street and also 7gables.org with the number 7. It's a beautiful 1668 colonial mansion that was made famous by author Nathaniel Hawthorne's book, The House of Seven Gables, that was released in 1851. If you visit 7gables.org, they even have a section on the website about the legends and lore of Salem. that give you ideas of places to visit in haunted Salem, besides the House of Seven Gables, the murder of Captain Joseph White at the Gardner Pingree House, and there's the old Burying Point Cemetery, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in the country. It was begun in 1637, but before 1673, all of the tombstones were made of wood that deteriorated, so there's no markers. However, if you're looking for the burial spots of any of the people accused of witchcraft, you will not find them there, as most of their whereabouts are unknown. Since being accused of witchcraft, they weren't allowed Christian burials, so no one knows where most of them are. And the cemetery is located right next to the Witch Trials Memorial, so if you find one, you'll see the other. I could keep going on and on about all of these incredible historic and haunted and spooky places to visit in Salem, because they've got more than just about any other place in the country. However, I'm sure there's some of you listening that want to know other things to do there besides visiting haunted spots. There is the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. It's centrally located at 160 Derby Street, but consists of 12 structures. a replica tall ship, and about nine acres of total land. The Salem Maritime Site is notable because it was the first national historic site established in the United States, being done on March 17, 1938. The replica tall ship, known as the Friendship of Salem, is right near the beginning of the Derby Street Wharf. At the end of the roughly 1,500-foot wharf is the Derby Wharf Light Station. It's a little white square tower that was built in 1871. And naturally, you know, if you've listened to the podcast, I enjoy lighthouses just a little bit. So I've been to Salem to visit that spot. Naturally, being right on the coast, there is beachfront property. You can go to Winter Island Beach slash Waikiki Beach. Yes, they have one in Salem, not just Hawaii. It's at 60 Winter Island Road. There's also Fort Pickering, which is a 17th century historic fort site. And there's also Fort Pickering Lighthouse, also known as Winter Island Lighthouse. This 28-foot tall lighthouse was also built in 1871. And it's here along the rocky north shore of Massachusetts that Salem feels less spooky and haunted than if you're walking the streets. But with so much to see and so much to do, You're going to build up an appetite wandering around the streets of Salem, whether during the day or at night. And if you're hungry, you should check out the Village Tavern. They're located at 168 Essex Street and also villagetavernsalem.com. There's three bars and two different menus with typical pub fare, chili, nachos, pretzels, but also prime rib, They've got entertainment. They do private catered events. Go to their website and check out the menu and the pictures and such. It'll tempt you to go there for sure. And I would highly recommend spending the night in Salem. Naturally, if you're going to do haunted tours, they have to be after dark. So it would probably be easier for you to just rent a room at the Hawthorne Hotel. They're located at 18 Washington Square West and also hawthornehotel.com. It's a 93-room brick facade hotel right on the water. The hotel's been around since the 1920s. They have their own tavern inside, so if you get there and you don't want to venture out, you've got options. There are special packages they do, and you can get more details on that on their website. And there's so much more to see and do that I'm able to fit into this road trip segment. But that's typical for all these places I talk about. For Salem, it's even worse, though. I'm trying not to gush too much, but this is a place that if you haven't been to, October is the perfect time of year to go, but you can go any time of year. These haunted spots and the Witch Trials Museum and the House of Seven Gables, they're there year-round. It's just more fitting this time of year. Visit Salem.org, also known as Destination Salem. It's got so much in terms of attractions and restaurants and where to stay. And it's a very walkable town. So park your car and just wander around. There's all sorts of little historical things, nooks and crannies that you might not see on typical websites. And that's the best thing about these road trips is just going there and finding your own way around. I find things I hope that you'll enjoy when you go there, but you never know what you're going to find in any spot. Take your car and just point it and go. And maybe at some point in the future I'll do a longer segment on the Salem Witch Trials, but you can find all you need to know at the Salem Witch Trials Museum. And next week we'll continue the Halloween season. It'll be hard to top Salem, but I'll try to find another spooky destination in New England for you all to go and check out and get scared at. It's time for a brand new This Week in History, and this week in history we are going back 96 years to October the 8th, 1927, and the debut of one of comedy's greatest ever duos, Laurel and Hardy, in their very first film, The Second Hundred Years. The movie was a silent comedy film. starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before they were known as Laurel and Hardy, the famous duo. Interestingly, in this film, it's the first time that they are paired as a duo. They had actually appeared in the same film a couple of times before, but were just two actors in a cast, never put together to be a team. Stan Laurel was the skinnier of the duo, with Oliver Hardy being much larger. They were a slapstick duo, with Laurel being more clumsy and Hardy being the pompous bully. In December 1927, so only two months after the release of the second Hundred Years, Laurel and Hardy made their first official teamed film. In total, the duo would make 107 films between 1927 and 1951. This time period, the late 20s through the early 1950s, was big for comedy teams. In addition to Laurel and Hardy, there was Abbott and Costello, and of course the Three Stooges, with that highly visual, slapstick, almost cartoonish type of violence. A big difference between the Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy is that Laurel and Hardy started with more feature films, whereas the Three Stooges got into them as they got older into the late 50s and early 1960s. Some of Laurel and Hardy's most famous films include Babes in Toyland, Sons of the Desert, and Way Out West. Their fame had faded in the late 40s and early 50s, and they were shot back to the mainstream when they made their one and only American television appearance on December 1st, 1954, when they were interviewed for the This Is Your Life television show. Laurel and Hardy are a team that even if you don't know their films, you know them well. If you see pictures of them, go look them up if you don't know who they are, and you'll be like, oh yeah, now I know who they are. And they influenced a generation of comedians that came after, like Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers, Steve Martin, John Cleese. Laurel and Hardy were even two of the cutouts used on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album in 1967, so there you go. Oliver Hardy passed in 1957, while Stan Laurel passed in 1965. And it's been 70 years since they made a movie, but their legacy still goes strong. And their very first movie as a comedy team, The Second Hundred Years, was released in theaters 96 years ago this week in history. And now it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're going back 70 years ago this week to October 10th, 1953. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was St. George and the Dragonette by Stan Freeberg. This song was an audio spoof, kind of like Weird Al Yankovic or Dr. Demento, a combination of St. George and the Dragon and the TV show Dragnet. Not only did this quote-unquote song go to number one, but it sold more than a million copies in its first three weeks. And this is likely to be the first and only time that there'll ever be a parody song with no singing in it at all to be featured on a time capsule. The number one movie was Mogambo, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing 60 cents. This movie was a romantic adventure film directed by John Ford, starring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly... It made just over $8 million on a budget of $3 million, despite having some Hollywood royalty starring in it. It has a rating of 77% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and Grace Kelly actually won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress with the film also being nominated for two Oscars. The number one TV show was I Love Lucy. If you've never heard of this show, I don't know where you've been living. It's one of the most famous shows in the history of television starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. It ran for six seasons and 180 total episodes between 1951 and 1957. They live in New York City and Lucy's always coming up with plans to try to sing in Ricky's band and other shenanigans. It won five Emmys and was nominated for numerous ones and averaged 40 million viewers per episode during its run. Can you imagine that with any show today? And there were numerous specials that came out after and the Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour. It truly is an iconic show. And if you were around back then, October 10th, 1953, it's getting close to Halloween. You got to figure out what kind of costume you want, where to get it. Well, the perfect place to go is Grant's in downtown Boston. They are known for their values. Located at 395 Washington Street, they have all the children's costumes you could possibly need for $1.98 each, including the skeleton, devil, a black cat, Cinderella, a spaceman that looks like something out of a B-movie. There's also animal costumes for kids. These are $2.98, including Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker, which they could actually say, but then there was Pig and Tiger. I don't know if they were misspelled or they just couldn't have Piglet and Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. There's rubber masks for $0.25 to $0.69. And all your favorite candies for 29 cents a pound, gumdrops, jelly beans, Hershey Kisses, and everyone's favorite candy corns. What a great Halloween that would have been in 1953. That'll wrap up another Time Capsule, another This Week in History. And now don't be too sad because we are finishing up the Weird New England Laws series on the top five. We're going to do the Weird Massachusetts Laws And that'll be it, I promise. We're not going to do all 50 states. You can go to stupidlaws.com yourself and see. But right now, let's embarrass my home state with the weird Massachusetts laws on the top five right now. Well, here we go. Ending the Weird Laws series on the top five. I saved my home state, Massachusetts, for last. I hope you've enjoyed this series. It was something that kind of came out of nowhere and I enjoyed putting these together. Like I've been saying, I will be putting together a video for YouTube with all six states. So you can hear all of the weird laws that have been a part of New England or used to be a part of New England all in one spot. But here we go. We're going to finish it up strong. As with my top fives, there's always honorable mentions to kind of get your mind going as to what's going to be on the top five. So honorable mentions for weird Massachusetts laws include it's illegal to scare pigeons. In Boston, it's illegal to cut firewood in the street. If you are at a wake, it is illegal for mourners to eat more than three sandwiches. For some strange reason, it is illegal for a gorilla to be in the backseat of a car. And finally, it is illegal to keep mules on the second floor or higher of a building unless there are at least two exits. But luckily, this law does not apply to those living in the city, which, like I've said with a lot of these, it's very random yet very specific. So those were the honorable mentions. Let's get into the actual top five weird Massachusetts laws, starting with number one. In Provincetown, it's illegal to sell suntan oil after noon on Sunday. Again, weirdly specific yet totally random. Are there shops in Provincetown where it hits noon on a Sunday and they run and grab all the suntan lotion and suntan oil, throw it in a box and hide it? And why is protecting your skin on a Sunday afternoon a problem there? I always have to laugh at wondering how that became a law. Was there a fight in the street where they were squirting suntan oil on each other on a Sunday afternoon and it got in someone's eyes and they said, that's it, I'm going to court? Number two, it is illegal to bring foul, specifically roosters, into a bakery. When I read this law, all I could think of was that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer had the pet rooster that he called Little Jerry, where there's just people walking around the streets with pet roosters and chickens and they go into a bakery and they get yelled at. You're not allowed in here with that. I could see this being a problem if you bring a bird into a bakery and it either attacks all the cakes and such or other customers or just poops everywhere. But that should be the same for any animal. If you bring a cat or a dog into a bakery, I'm sure it's going to do something. That law didn't say where it specifically stemmed from, if it was a particular town, because I'd love to know the origin story of that one. Much like I'd like to know the origin story of this next one. Number three, it's illegal to hang a vending machine on a utility pole in Boston. That's right. I said it exactly how it's worded on the sites like stupidlaws.com where I found it. So I don't know if that's how it is in the law books that you can't hang a vending machine on a utility pole. This some kind of prank where someone puts a Coke machine way up a telephone pole to try to get people to go climb up it or some weird hazing ritual. We need you to go get a bag of chips from that vending machine that's 30 feet up. And how would you even get it there besides like a hook and a crane and everyone would see it? This is an obvious law, but one that I guess needed to be put on the books. I guess someone must have done it. Luckily, no one has done this next one. Number four, in the town of Marlborough, you may not detonate a nuclear device. This is another no duh type of law. I would hope that it's not legal to detonate nukes in other towns in the state, but for some reason Marlboro found it necessary to put it on the books. I mean, I guess there could have been a threat, but that seems like something very specific that you would have to put on the books if someone threatened to detonate a nuke in Marlboro. It's not that big of a city. Maybe I'll have to look up because I'm curious just how many towns in this country have a similar law that makes it illegal to detonate a nuke. I would hope that it's not just here in Massachusetts and Marlboro because that would be pretty embarrassing. And speaking of embarrassing, finally, number five on the list of weird Massachusetts laws in the town of Longmeadow, it is illegal for two men to carry a bathtub across the town green. That sounds like something straight out of a Three Stooges or a Laurel and Hardy type of movie, walking down the street carrying a bathtub. I would think two people, if they were strong, could carry one, but I would think three people it would be easier. So is that legal? You just need to have three people so that no one hurts their shoulders or back? And how do you carry a typical bathtub? Is it like a casket where you're on either side holding it? Or do you get underneath it and press it overhead? I can only assume this happened in Longmeadow, that two people were carrying a bathtub and either it fell and broke stuff or somebody got hurt and tried to sue the town. Like it's the town's fault that you were carrying a bathtub on unstable ground. So if you're going to go carrying bathtubs around, don't do it in Longmeadow. Massachusetts did not disappoint. I hope you enjoyed the top five weird laws series, all six states. The link to stupidlaws.com is in the description of the podcast. So you can find out what kind of weird, hilarious type of laws are in your state. And I'll be back next week with a brand new top five, but I'm going to have to actually really think about what I'm going to do. The last few months have been laid out for me with these weird laws. So now I could actually put in the work, but I'm sure it'll be something fun that I get to share with you next week. So you're lying in bed. The alarm clock starts to go off. Slowly, you're opening your eyes. You're usually tired first thing in the morning, but something feels different today. Uh-oh, you're coming down with something. You're sick. luckily for you you are still young and you can stay home from school you don't have to call out to work or feel guilty and go into work anyway sick and now you alert your mother that you don't feel well she comes into your bedroom either feels your forehead and your cheeks to see if you're running a fever or grabs the thermometer with the mercury in it and takes your temperature and she agrees you've got to go back to sleep stay home from school it's officially a sick day and here Here we are in the 1980s or early 1990s. So let's go way, way back in the day and see what it was like to stay home from school on one of those days during the 80s and early 90s. I don't know about you, but I was taught early that if I stayed home from school sick, I'd better be sick. There was none of this suddenly when it was three o'clock and kids were getting out of school. I felt better and it was time to go out and play. My mother always told me if you were too sick to go to school, you're too sick to play with your friends after. So even if I pretended to be sick, I knew I was going to have to stay inside regardless, which wasn't too often. I only stayed home when I really was sick. So you've slept in for a couple more hours. Typically, if I was deathly sick, like a throw-up bug or something, I wasn't getting out of bed at all. But if it was a common cold, let's go with that. Stuffed up. Maybe you get the Vicks VapoRub rubbed on your chest. Boy, you could smell that menthol. You could probably smell it through the headphones right now. But at least with the common cold, you could actually leave your bed, go out to the living room, and set up camp on the couch. And this is one of those more innocent sick days from school. Like I said, common cold, maybe a little fever, stuffy, maybe a sore throat. There might be some liquid Benadryl or Robitussin. Or the Sucrette's throat drops in that little metal tin with the wax paper around it. And I say innocent school day, so it's not like you've got to go to the doctor or anything. It's a day or two, you relax, and then you're good to go again. So you're propped up on the couch, a couple of pillows and a blanket. It's like heaven. Your mother will wait on you hand and foot to make sure that you're feeling okay. Get the remote for the big boxy TV that they had in the late 80s, early 90s. And back then, maybe you had cable. So you get a few dozen channels. Maybe you don't have cable and it's just those regular primetime channels. I don't know about you, but when I was sick, when I was 11, 12, 13 years old, when I was surfing around the channels, I was immediately looking for game shows. You heard me mention back in episode 112 that I went right for The Price is Right and Bob Barker. Unless it was summertime and it was rainy out, typically the only time I saw Bob Barker in The Price is Right was when I was sick, resting on the couch. If you want the full deep dive into my love of Price is Right and how it was a big part of my sick days, you can go back and check out episode 112. But there were so many other classic game shows that were on at the time. And when I think of these sick days, I think mainly of middle school. So depending on where you were, that's typically 5th through 8th grade. So for me, that's about 1989 to 92. And there were so many game shows to watch. They had the Scrabble game, win, lose, or draw. Classic Concentration. And of course, Nickelodeon still had the classic Double Dare. There was Family Feud with Ray Combs. Or maybe you were lucky enough to get to watch MTV and Remote Control where Adam Sandler was on it when he was really young. Growing up, I think we usually had one, maybe two TVs. It was rare for any of us kids to have TVs in our rooms. It just wasn't something that was affordable. So on days that I stayed home from school, I was lucky because as far as I remember, my mother never liked to watch soap operas, so I never got stuck watching any of those. Young and the Restless, All My Children, One Life to Live, Santa Barbara, Guiding Light. General Hospital. Those are all the famous ones of that time period. I'm sure me naming them brought back either great or terrible memories for some of you. And some of these shows are still on the air, so maybe you watch them now with your kids staying home from school. One thing I was and still am a big fan of are the retro commercials from back in the day. Back in the late 80s, early 90s, things like McDonald's were geared way more towards kids with Ronald McDonald and all of his crew. Every sort of food had a mascot, all the cereals. Even things like 7-Up, the soda had those red dots that were kind of animated. The California raisins. The Energizer bunny was always everywhere. Then there'd be these other products for what they probably assumed were people either at home for the day from work or those that were just stay-at-home parents. So there'd be a lot of cleaners for the house products. Mop and Glow, Joy, Pledge, Spick and Span. But those and all the others, they would have this soft elevator music to it. That's one of those they don't make them like they used to type things with the commercials. And then there were the cheesy infomercials or the daytime talk shows like Donahue and Oprah. When I was thinking of putting this segment together and I was thinking of commercials and such... The one that stuck with me the most was New England Brickmaster. Any of you that are from New England remember that company? I think they're still around. I don't know why that one sticks with me because it wasn't anything spectacular. It was just showing them building things, brick, stucco, and stone face homes. It's amazing the things that stick with you from childhood. New England Brickmaster. Who'd have thought in my 40s that I could still remember those commercials? But what if there's nothing good on TV and you're sick and cranky? Luckily, at that time, most people had VCRs to watch some VHS tapes. We had tons of VHS tapes, either regular movies and cartoons or homemade mix VHS tapes. Like I had one that was a bunch of Garfield and Friends cartoons. And back then you just recorded over things. rather than buying more and more VHS tapes so the quality of the picture would just get darker and grainier. And I remember there'd be days when I was homesick that I'd want McDonald's because I saw it on TV, or I'd want to go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, or in Yarmouth we had a place called Entertainment Stop that was near the Hearth and Kettle. And my mother would say, you know, you're sick. This isn't party time. We're not getting you fast food and renting you movies. So I'd have to make do with what I had. I think the biggest thrill I had being sick was when my Uncle Steve let us borrow Game 7 of the 1984 NBA Finals, the Celtics and Lakers. And I got to watch the Celtics win the NBA title. I started watching sports in 1986, so that was a little before my time. But we had all kinds of Celtics games from Sports Channel. It became NBC Sports Boston in the late 90s, early 2000s. And that time period in the late 80s, early 90s, the Celtics were still really good. They cratered in the late 90s. But if you're homesick, maybe you don't have an appetite. So you could get some saltine crackers. That was mostly if you were nauseous. To see if you could keep things down, it would be saltines, maybe some ice chips, maybe popsicles. And then if you were feeling a little better, maybe you could get some ginger ale, Canada Dry ginger ale or Schweppes. I kid you not, even now in my mid-40s, I don't drink ginger ale because I associate it with being sick when I was a kid. Even Fresca, I associate with being sick. My little niece, who's four, she loves it, and I won't drink it because it just reminds me of being sick. The carbonation helped soothe my sore throat. You're supposed to starve a cold and feed a fever. So if you had a fever, my mom would make me a grilled cheese, cut it into quarters, three or four slices of the classic Kraft American cheese, the yellow. Maybe soup. Campbell's chicken soup or tomato soup. I really didn't like tomato soup till I got older. And when you're sitting there on the couch with your pillows, watching Price is Right with your ginger ale and your Campbell's soup and your grilled cheese, even if you're sick, you feel like a king or a queen. And back then, 1989, 90, 91, I had four siblings that all had to go to school. So the best part was when they started coming home, and there I was on the couch. But I knew even if I wasn't as sick as I said I was, I couldn't go out and play. So it wasn't like I was a total winner. And that was something that stuck with me all through adulthood, was that if you were too sick to go to school or go to work, you couldn't just play around. So even to this day, I rarely, if ever... Take days off from work. I'd rather feel less than 100% and go to work than not feel guilty about having fun after work. But did that sound like how your sick days would be if you grew up in the 80s and 90s watching the game shows, Price is Right, Family Feud, Double Dare, maybe People's Court with Judge Wapner? Those classic commercials that all had jingles and all had slogans and had the cheesy elevator music that somehow soothes me as an adult now? Or were your days totally different? Luckily, as I record this, I feel great, but maybe the next time I have a cold, I'll have some Campbell's soup and ginger ale and put on some random 1989 infomercial and feel like I'm 12 again. And that's going to do it. That's going to wrap up episode 115 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Find me all over social media, Instagram, threads, X, the Facebook fan page. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. I put up full episode audio of the podcast, usually a day or two after it goes live. And I'm trying my best to catch up on the old episodes. During my break, the hiatus of the podcast, I started doing that and I got up to about 30 episodes and then I started the podcast up again. So it's been playing catch up now. As I said at the beginning of this episode, I have three new books that came out in 2023. Searching for the Lady of the Dunes, my true crime book, the second edition of the Cape Cod Travel Guide through Schiffer Publishing. and Cape Cod Beyond the Beach, my photography book through Arcadia Publishing. Go and check them all out and see all of my work at my homepage, ChristopherSetterlin.com. If you're interested, you can become a subscriber to the podcast and get access to exclusive episodes. Go through Patreon. Buzzsprout also does them. That's my hosting platform for the podcast. Next week will be episode 116 of the podcast, and we're going to continue the Halloween theme with the sad and horrific case of Cape Codder Charles Freeman, who murdered his daughter in the name of God. It's every bit as terrible as it sounds, and maybe even worse. But it is the spooky season, so we've got to keep that going. I wanted to make sure that I took some time here at the end to wish my niece Emma a happy 22nd birthday. This episode goes live on her birthday. She is finishing up her degree in forensic psychology, graduating early because she's genius level smart. I used to be genius level smart, and that's the truth. But the problem with that is that you have to stay on that track. The speed that you have to go, the difficulty of being on that level, high honors and high school and things, it takes a special kind of dedication to keep going at that level, a dedication that I obviously did not have. As soon as I started slowing down, it was almost impossible to start that train back up. But I get to watch my niece Emma and everything that she's doing. and appreciate it even more because it could have been me, but I didn't have the dedication that she has. And even though there's plenty of times that I feel so old and wonder where the time went, seeing my nieces and nephews grow up, especially my two oldest nieces, it is fun to connect with them now as adults. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I missed those days when they were little, little kids that were so excited when I would come over and hang out with them. It was such an ego boost to be seen as someone that always brought the fun and that made everyone happy to see me. But happy birthday, Emma. I know you of all people appreciate the true crime and the spooky stuff that I'm putting in the October episodes of the podcast. And I'm very proud of who you are and all that you've done and all that you will do in the future. This is only the beginning for you. You're not starting the back nine like me. But that's fine. We're less than a month from my birthday. And I do often wonder where the time went. But most of the time, I don't feel my age. There are some people my age that have aged terribly. Some that have serious physical issues or have gone through a lot of trials and tribulations. I've been lucky to get to be to my mid-40s and still be pretty healthy. I mean, I better be to work as a trainer. and to have defeated my worst demon, my drinking, and be three years out from that. All things considered, I feel pretty damn good. I'll speak more on that in a future episode around my birthday about how age is nothing but a number. And maybe that's going to be my midlife crisis trying to hold on to my youth. But I do, I feel pretty good for going on 46 years old. Good Lord. But as you get into this age group, you really got to focus on your mental health first. Because when you're closer to 50 than 40, it can kind of be a shock to the system. So lean into the things that make you happy. Family and friends, hopefully you have enough to do that for you. Hopefully where you live does that for you. Not just the physical home, but the city, town, region. I'm lucky in New England, Cape Cod, Massachusetts to be a three, four minute drive from the beach. Anytime I feel like it, that's something you can't put a price tag on. Although a lot of people do with the housing prices down here. And hopefully the podcast brings you some good mental health. I will keep on pumping out the content here, the subscription-based episodes, all my content on YouTube. So you know I've got your back. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path. Enjoy every moment you can and leave the biggest footprint you can. Because you never know what tomorrow brings. Happy birthday again to Emma. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll be back next week with episode 116. But until then, this has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, and I'll talk to you all again soon.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Christopher Setterlund

Host