Paul Thaler, author of “Bronxland,” discusses his new coming of age story and the tumultuous decade of the ’60s in America. His story will bring you back to your middle school years, regardless of where you grew up.
Who is Paul Thaler and how did the idea of Bronxland emerge?
Paul, author of Bronxland and other books, shares classroom stories with Laurel, author of “Miss?” and other books.
Discussion about the environment in schools in the ’60s and relationships…in the courtyard, with classmates, with teachers
School orchestra award medal story and lessons learned
The true “crush” Paul had on his math teacher and the art project no one will ever forget
Sex in the laundry room and the creepy guy in the theater
The big fight and the idea of respect
A time of innocence and heartbreak
Coming of age story, discovering one’s place in this world
JFK was a Bronx boy and greatly influenced PaulPaul Thaler sent me this JFK Bronx school photo (Riverdale Country Day School). Can you guess which one he is? Hint: he’s the one who already looks presidential!
Lots of history in the novel…a special place in time…the tragic decade of the ’60s
Where did Paul learn compassion?
Story of the missing boy (Etan Patz) and how it’s handled in Bronxland
Writing a novel and the “avalanche of memories” that come into play
Black Opal Books and how publishing is sometimes more difficult than writing (because of the letting go)
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In this episode, I share some writings in poetry and prose on the topic “The Body” for a special project and discover something about reading instructions!
A body batik, the most stunning creation on earth
Wrung from a lifetime—begun with a thought and a prayer
Lined by a hand unseen, wax designs sketched before birth
Patterns present themselves often before we’re aware
Skin of an infant, luminous, fragrant and pure
Hiding within it adventure and challenge and grief
Never foreseeing the hardships we all must endure
Born to exposure—a lifetime, though surely too brief
Teenage perfection with makeup and primping routine
Taking for granted the glowing of health and fresh youth
Carefree and negligent, no need to mind the machine
We were invincible, now we can laugh at the truth
Growing maturity, comfort and pride in our skin
“What are your secrets?” they’ll ask, as we gracefully age
“Having accomplishments, balancing yang with our yin,
We’re the creators of joy in our lives at each stage!”
Old age surprises us, creases appear to unfold
Splotches and patches of skin we expect to stay smooth
Thinning, translucent and bumpy, a sight to behold
Pricey medicinals, daily required to soothe
A body batik, the most challenging canvas from birth
Etched with experience, pleasure and pain and repair
Creases and wrinkles embellish us, value their worth
Live in them lovingly, cherish your internal flair
Crafted with purpose and care is our body batik
Each one unveiled as a masterpiece, each one unique
Enigmachine (a 200-word challenge about “The Body”)
This faulty machine I inhabit remains an enigma. “We can send a man to the moon,” but this arthritic bump on my finger and, and, and. The ands are too trite to discuss. I wrote a piece about menopause in which I addressed my Mum’s droopy cheeks, among other sagging things, when I became keenly aware of my own floppy parts. Her sister took umbrage. How could I be so disrespectful to my aging mother?
Mum laughed.
I watched as she disappeared, her hair and skin thinning, until finally she was gone. A breeze might have carried her away. I held her hand, a near duplicate of my own, and as her engine fluttered to failure, I marveled at the framework that had carried her through 89 years.
Will my framework carry me as long? Will my frequently fluttering heart match the mileage hers endured? Will I be as prepared as she was to leave the burden of a broken machine behind when new parts are no longer in stock?
Perhaps. Until then, I’ll (try to) control my displeasure as each new “and . . .” hijacks my machine. Until then, I’ll service and lube as necessary.
And I’ll smile.
Me and Mum. We’d laugh about being twins separated by 30 years!
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June Trop, Associate Professor emerita at the State University of New York at New Paltz, talks about the inspiration for her Miriam bat Isaac Mystery Series, her years of teaching middle school science, her twin sister, and lots more!
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Laurel recounts the craziest race her husband, Mike, ever participated in: A pack burro race up Mosquito Pass and back during a Leadville Boom Days weekend. He raced with a rent-an-ass from Curtis Imrie (RIP) and met the legendary Ken Chlouber for the first time as well. This is a crazy-ass story with some poignant moments.
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Alison Sandoval is a “Silver Queen” after completing the Leadville Race Series two-day race: a 50-mile mountain bike race on a Saturday followed by a 50-mile foot race the very next day, starting at over 10,000′ elevation and climbing through mountainous terrain from there! And she is the one who inspired her husband (who is the current record holder for the Leadman race) to start competing!
Alison Sandoval starts her new career as a magic paper artist!
Listen Here:
Show Notes with Links:
Alison tells us who she is
How she got into racing, her first race, and inspiring husband Wesley Sandoval (current Leadman record holder) to get into a fitness routine.
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Chuck Bost is an 85-year-old Leadville native and he has stories to tell! He’s also about the nicest man you’ll ever meet. A miner like his ancestors, Chuck talks about what Leadville was like “back in the day” and what he has done for work and for fun all these years.
Chuck Bost visits with me downtown at Cookies With Altitude (owner Sherry Randall)!
Show Notes with Links:
Charles Joseph Anton Bostyancic, a.k.a. Chuck Bost, talks about his family name change
His father and grandfather were miners too
He remembers what Leadville was like when he was a child
His first jobs, the challenges he faces, and what he was paid: “It was pretty good for a young feller”!
Climax Mine work and moving houses to town in 1962
Chuck Bost at 18, joined the Navy but got transferred to the 1st Marine Division
More about his mother and father, caring for his parents, and past girlfriends
Catholic grade school with the Sisters of Charity
Did he ever get in trouble?
“No more wine for you, little Charlie”!
Chuck’s relationship with his younger brother and sister
His memories of the Korean War and if he was ever afraid
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Laurel interviews her husband, Mike McHargue, a four-time Leadman and two-time titanium man, about racing and sacrifice and suffering and some fun things too. As the Emergency Manager for his county and as a volunteer for Search and Rescue, he has experienced more unusual physical challenges than the average bear. Listen to his philosophy on pushing past self-imposed limits and on the different “types” of fun in the world.
Mike paints a bicycle he probably would not want to ride in any race!
Listen here:
2006: Waiting at the finish line (after missing Mike at the 50-mile point because of chocolates)!
Show Notes with Links:
Why ultra-racing, and how did it start?
Bill Block, Frank Sobchek, and adventure racing
West Virginia 24-hour race (I cried…another story!)
When short races become “too comfortable”
2006: Nick paced Mike from Twin Lakes to MayQueen!
Shackleton’s recruiting advertisement for the crew of the Endurance and the Antarctic expedition: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” –Ernest Shackleton.
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Brent Goldstein’s bucket (list) is empty after completing the 2018 Tour Divide, but he’s back in Leadville to compete in his 12th Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race!
Brent Goldstein’s magic paper “painting”! (You paint with water and your work of art disappears quickly! Order yours at Leadville’s Fire On The Moutain)
Brent races for the First Descents (FD) Organization–he’s the Chairman of the FD Board–and is working on a book about his experience riding the Tour Divide and working with the FD organization. *
* Brent would like to make a correction to his response about why Brad Ludden founded First Descents: it was not his sister who had cancer, but his aunt.
Listen here:
Show Notes with Links:
Brad Ludden’s vision for First Descents
Preparing to include candidates with Multiple Sclerosis
Brent talks about the variety of adventure camps young adult cancer survivors/patients may attend
His friend Alan Goldberg convinced him to ride the LT100
His worst day on the Tour, feeling fear, and his best day
Did completing the Tour Divide change his life?
Shout-outs to supporters, so many! His wife Lisa, Jackie, Gary Johnson (yes, that one), Kevin Kane, Jeff Hoffman, Bonnie Gagnon, Mario & Vincent Hammel, Wayne, Chuck, and more!
Contact me: laurel@strackpress.com if you’re interested in purchasing Not Your Mother’s Book…On Being a Stupid Kid with Brent’s stories in it and I’ll donate proceeds to First Descents!
Find out how you can support First Descents here, and remember that another way you can help the FD family is by referring young adult survivors/patients to FD to attend their life-affirming programs.
More Links:
If you enjoy my podcasts, you might enjoy my books!
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
What would you do if the internet and your phone service were down and you had no idea when or if they’d be restored? This happened to me on August 1st. Find out what I did!
“In my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be . . . ” ~ Cinderella
Show Notes and photos:
Sitting. Simply sitting in silence. I can’t remember when I’ve done this lately.
It’s because the internet is down and we have no service. No phone, no Facebook, nothing but me in this $20 thrift store chair and Ranger plunked down on the floor looking at me with wonder or boredom. I’ll say wonder.
I found the beautifully upholstered chair amidst a mass of should-have-been-discarded furniture and knew I’d found a treasure. Yellow, blue, green and white, my favorite colors, it sat like a blossom in a desert, complete with arm protectors and matching throw pillows. I looked it over quickly, sat in it, realized it was the kind of chair I’ve been searching for, and ran through the wasteland to the cashier.
“How much for the yellow chair?”
“Oh, twenty dollars, I guess.”
“I’ll take it.”
My Mum would have liked this chair; it fits a smallish person just right. And she would have liked that I wrote about it while sitting in it, quietly, while the pork in my crockpot falls apart. With no internet, no phone, no heavy machinery outside my window because they’ve finally finished paving the road, I made chicken salad for lunch and got dinner started. I walked with Ranger and watered the plants outside. It’s August first, and my daisy plant has just now decided to open nearly every bud. Life’s tough for a plant in Leadville.
Mum wasn’t happy with my decision to move to Leadville. “Why would you want to go backwards,” she asked after visiting for the first time. She loved our Colorado Springs McMansion and never did understand why I’d want to live in a house like the one her father lived in, an old Victorian with creaky floors and possibly ghosts.
I’ve written my most creative pieces atop these creaky floors. Sitting in my $20 chair now, I realize this is the first piece I’ll write in it. I placed it in an empty corner in our dining room figuring I’d eventually move it upstairs, but it wanted to stay there by the morning sun window and next to the sleigh seat table I used to bounce on as a child.
One of Mum’s earliest painting. More than “good enough.”
I realize Mum’s spirit is everywhere in this room. Her dining room table—the one on which she made my sisters’ wedding gowns and around which she hosted decades of celebrations—is showing its age, as am I. Her paintings—there’s one in nearly every room—are a constant reminder of her creativity and humility. She painted till the end, but never thought she was “good enough.”
Before she died, we teased about where her ashes would go. “I’m definitely bringing at least some of you to Leadville,” I told her. “You do that and I’ll haunt you!” she said, and we laughed.
Funny Mum. Don’t you know you’re all around me every day?
She frequently reminded me to take care of myself. Take time for myself. Meditate. It was advice she rarely, if ever, followed herself. But this is not a piece about my Mum. This is a piece about sitting in silence.
I wanted to call my youngest sister, Carol, today to tell her how suddenly sad I felt that our Mum and Dad wouldn’t be there for her youngest son’s upcoming wedding. Carol married one year after I did, but my wedding was the last one our Bupa attended. He was my Mum’s father, and he was several sheets to the wind by the time the garter ceremony began. He wouldn’t let anyone, including my brand new husband, remove the garter from my leg. Nope. He pushed Mike away and did it himself.
Grandparents add a certain feeling of validation to big events like weddings, or in my comical case, a reminder that age has its privileges. So I’m sad my parents won’t be there for her son’s wedding. And should my sons someday marry, they obviously won’t be at their weddings either. Wow. That just hit me.
My parents were Nick’s caretakers for the first two months of his life as Mike and I were in grad school when he was born. We’d come home to a clean house, dinner ready, and our baby asleep in my father’s arms. Although I was not working when Jake was born, Mum and Dad were there to provide the same care and love for his first six weeks of life. I never turned down their offers of assistance, and they made sure Nick had as much attention as the noisy little interloper.
Funny what goes through your mind when you’re surrounded by silence. And I can’t call Carol to tell her how sad I feel because there’s still no service. What if internet and phone lines couldn’t be restored? Now, there’s a funny thought. I’d have to write a letter. I could do that. Sometimes I wish the internet would disappear so we’d all have more silence in our lives.
Our lives are driven by the calendar and what we have planned for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I just flipped my calendar to today, the first day of August, and back-to-school thoughts flood my senses.
I remember back-to-school butterflies and setting out my first day of school finery, one new dress and new shoes from The Bargain Center, the night before school. I couldn’t wait to walk to Eldridge Elementary School with Carol and my best friend Marilyn, crunching fallen acorns under our heels and sticking flighty little maple seedlings onto our noses along the way. Maybe there’d be new kids to meet. Maybe there’d be a cute boy.
My favorite of Mum’s paintings in my recording studio. There’s a story behind this painting. WAY more than “good enough.”
I don’t remember calendars in my early grade school days. I remember recess and lunch tokens and projects I’d research in our Britannica Encyclopedias, our 1960s internet. And I remember cute boys.
The Darcys moved into our neighborhood when I was in 3rd grade and I was in love with the new boy. Richard was tall, dark, and handsome, and had the most beautiful lips I’d ever seen. How I longed to kiss them. I remember falling into “his” chair—he wasn’t in it—during lunch one day. The 3rd grade classroom was also the lunch room, and in the hubbub of exchanging tokens for S.O.S. and a carton of milk, I’d lost my balance. I felt wonderfully naughty sitting there in his seat, though I’m quite certain no one else suspected my secret thrill. I never did kiss those lips.
And then there was Rick Tessari, the new boy in 5th grade. He was Johnny-Depp-handsome and had the most beautiful cursive handwriting I’d ever seen. I like to think my taste in men was maturing, though I did kiss his lips after a rousing episode of spin-the-bottle one afternoon. What was a girl to do back then with no internet? There were only so many things one could learn from Britannica.
Ranger’s nose pokes me from my thoughts. Time for another walk. If the internet’s still out when I return, I’ll resume my reverie.
We’re back, and it was the perfect walk for a thoughtful day. Ranger wanted to sniff every fifth clump of grass and I let him. His age is starting to show too, and although I could have strolled longer in the cool evening breeze, his sniffer was satisfied and he led me back home to plunk by my $20 chair where I sit, again, in silence.
Mike returns, the sun sets, and the aroma from my crockpot makes me salivate. I’ll serve the pork over noodles. Mum would approve.
More Links:
If you enjoy my podcasts, you might enjoy my books!
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Wesley Sandoval broke the record for the Leadman Race in 2016. Find out why he signed up for this epic ultra-endurance high-altitude race series and how he convinced himself to go for the record.
Also find out what it’s like to compete with a brother! Wesley’s race experience has truly been a family affair.
Listen here:
Wesley Sandoval crossing the finish lineWesley (center) and brother Marvin (right)It’s a Sandoval family affair!
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Paul Thaler sent me this JFK Bronx school photo (Riverdale Country Day School). Can you guess which one he is? Hint: he’s the one who already looks presidential!
