Category Archives: Episodes

The World of Peter Wong -014

April 10, 2020Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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The World of Peter Wong

Willie Wideman Pleasants -013

March 1, 2020Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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Willie Pleasants is a longtime resident of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and an educator who holds a degree from the University of Massachusetts. As President of the Friends of the Uphams Corner Branch Library for the last 5 years, she was instrumental in finding funds to offer two Respite workshops to support the caregivers. She recently hosted a five-week writer’s program to help them to become published authors, which resulted in the anthology, Write On! Write On! (available through the Uphams Corner Library as a fundraiser). She also volunteers her time as Secretary for a group called ‘Seniors on the Move.’

She is the author of three books of poetry and short stories: Ain’t That the Truth, Make Truth a Habit (both available on Amazon) and soon-to-be available Stretching the Truth.

Programing and workshops
• In 2014 (continuing to the present), she created and facilitated a class called, “Storytelling at Tea,” which was offered as a course for the Osher Life Learning Institute at University of Mass /Boston. Her poems and stories are used to help provoke conversations with the participants about their lives.

• 2018, 2019 organized the Dorchester Open Studios to help artists sell their artwork.

• From 2012- 2017, she volunteered as a team leader for a Jumpstart program, that helps three- to five-year-old children prepare to enter kindergarten to succeed with language and literacy skills.

• In 2008, she instructed a poetry workshop in the Mason Middle School with fifth graders. She spoke at Career day at the Patrick Gavin Middle School to encourage written poetry. She has facilitated classes on writing poetry at the Bristol Plymouth Regional School in Taunton.

• Since 2007, she has been a co-founder of the authors’ support group, Authors without Borders – a consortium of regional authors in Massachusetts who first joined together in 2007.

Media
• She does workshops, panel discussions, and Meet and Greets to help navigate the maze of writing, publishing and marketing books.

• Willie was one of the producers and hosts of a Cable show at NBTV called, “Authors Without Borders Presents” (2011-2019).

• She also produces and hosts her own cable show called “Willie’s Web” on the Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN).

• She is currently (2019-20) a DJ for WBCA 109.2 FM Community Radio, “The Village.”

Website: www.williepleasants.com

Hope is the Thing With Feathers -012

February 1, 2020Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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We haven’t kept up with the Sally-B for many decades, but as I was researching this, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the plane is still flying. Although Ted White has died, Ellie Sallingboe continues to operate the B-17 with a faithful crew of pilots (apart from herself) and other volunteers. You can learn more about this plane in Wikipedia and/or by going to the official website www.sallyb.org.uk. To learn more about what we humans have done, and are doing, to birds, I recommend a compelling story in the book, The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson (2018). Further, you might want to look up (on the Internet) how the Passenger Pigeon became extinct through hunting, and how birds continue to be smuggled and sold for the pet trade.

Dead Horse Swamp and the Feather Tree -011

January 21, 2020Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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Robert Burns, “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785.

a www.Ancestry.com, Otto Rainer Burger, Passenger Lists.
b Wikipedia, “Selective Training and Service Act of 1940,” online.
c Berkshire Evening Eagle, Science Service, “James Bay Isle To Be Studied For
Botany Lore,” 27 August 1946.
d The Catholic University of America, “The Archivist’s Nook: Our Coolest Blog Yet
– The Arctic Institute at Catholic University,” posted online by Shane
MacDonald, 13 August 2019.
e Shane MacDonald, Catholic University Archives, personal communication by
email, 16 September 2019.
f Princess Evelyn Blucher, An English Wife in Berlin, E.P. Dutton & Co., New
York, 1920; subtitled: A Private Memoir of Events, Politics, and Daily Life in
Germany throughout the War and the Social Revolution of 1918.
g The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is now called World
Animal Protection (WAP).
h Gerardo Huertas, personal communication by email, 31 August 2019.
i Laura Redish and Orrin Lewis, website “Native Languages of the Americas,
Atikamekw Indian Fact Sheet.”
j Herausgegeben von Krickeberg, Indianermärchen aus Nordamerica, published
by Diederichs Verlag, 1924 [in German].
k “The History of Schloss Laufen,” prepared by the castle’s information center.
l Andreas Hürlimann, Canton Zurich, Baudirektion, Real Estate Management,
personal communication by email, 9 Sept. 2019.

Forgotten Lives, Part 3 Valerie Burger Spiess -010

December 1, 2019Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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A Swiss woman honored by the First Nations people of Quebec.

Memoir Writing, An interview with author, Alberta Sequeira -009

November 1, 2019Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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Memoirs of an alcoholic family in crisis.

Alberta’s books include the following~
On alcoholism
• Someone Stop This Merry-Go-Round; An Alcoholic Family in Crisis
• Please, God, Not Two; This Killer Called Alcoholism
• What is and isn’t Working for the Alcoholics and Addicts; Their Own Personal Stories
Other
• A Spiritual Renewal: A Journey to Medjugorje
• How to Self-Publish Your Own Book with Create Space: Easy Steps
• Writing Memoirs
• Bring Your Manuscript to Publication: A Guide for Writers and Authors
• Loose Ends: A Hodgepodge of Stories from Authors Without Borders
To learn more about Alberta and her work, you may go to her website:
www.amazon.com/author/albertasequeira

Who is Alberta Sequeira

Forgotten Lives, Part 2 -008

October 2, 2019Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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Books/Articles
a Lucy Frucht, video interview, USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive,
recorded 12 October 1995 (Miryam Rabner, interviewer); viewed at Brandeis University, 7 August 2019.
b Lucy Frucht, video interview, Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust
Testimonies, Yale University; recorded 18 July 1994 (Dana Kline,
interviewer); viewed at Brandeis University, 7 August 2019.
c Diedre Bonifaz, “A Haven in Whateley. The Refugees Who Came to Our Farm,”
in The Dispossessed. An Anatomy of Exile, edited by Peter I. Rose, University
of Massachusetts Press, Amherst & Boston, 2005; pp. 203-230.
d Paul Vitello, “Scholars Reconsidering Italy’s Treatment of Jews in the Nazi
Era,” New York Times, 4 November 2010; online; p. A28 in 11.05.10 print edition.
e “History of the Jews in France,” Wikipedia.
f Varian Fry, Surrender on Demand, Johnson Books, Boulder, CO, Published in
Conjunction with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1997;
copyrighted and published in 1945; p. 98.
g Avraham Milgram, “Portugal, the Counsuls, and the Jewish Refuges, 1938-
1941,” online at Yad Vasham, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center; Yad Vashem Studies Vol. XXVII, Jerusalem 1999, pp. 123-156 (Translated by Anna Shidlo).
h Lucy Frucht, Tribute to Varian Fry, March 1991; personal communication.

i “Portuguese freighter on which K. Frucht reached the U.S.” Pictured in the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Cynthia Jaffee
McCabe.
j Obituary, Dr. Hedda Kornfeld, Published in San Francisco Chronicle, July 29,
2015.
k Hedda Kornfeld, video interview, Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust
Testimonies, Yale University; recorded in October 1998; viewed at Brandeis
University, 7 August 2019.
l Jean A. Douillette, Gravestone Locator for Lakeville, Massachusette 1711-2003;
Urn and Willow Publishing, 2014.

Film
And Crown Thy Good: Varian Fry and the Refugee Crisis, Marseille 1940-41 by Pierre Sauvage, should be finished in late 2020. (Personal communication) Filmmaker Sauvage is also the president of the Varian Fry Institute, a division of the Chambon Foundation (Los Angeles, California) which has its focus on the Holocaust and its aftermath.

Forgotten Lives, Part 1 -007

September 1, 2019Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:49 — 25.5MB) | Embed

Books/Articles
a Lucy Frucht, “Varian Fry” tribute (1991) and personal communication.
b Hertha Pauli, Break of Time, Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York, 1972 (English
version).
c Hertha Pauli, Cry of the Heart;: The story of Bertha von Suttner, I. Washburn,
New York, 1957 (English version).
d Varian Fry, Surrender on Demand, Johnson Books, Boulder, CO, Published in
Conjunction with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1997;
copyrighted and published in 1945.
e Diedre Bonifaz, “A Haven in Whateley. The Refugees Who Came to Our Farm,”
in The Dispossessed. An Anatomy of Exile, edited by Peter I. Rose, University
of Massachusetts Press, Amherst & Boston, 2005; pp. 203-230.
f Lisa Fittko, Escape Through the Pyrenees, Northwestern University Press,
Evanston, Illinois, 1991 (English translation).
g Rosemary Sullivan, Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in
Marseille, HarperCollins, New York, 2006; pp. 112-113.
h Varian Fry, Assignment: Rescue, An Autobiography. Scholastic Inc., New York,
1968, p. 158.
I Lucy Frucht, video interview, recorded 18 July 1994, Fortunoff Video Archive
for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University (Dana Kline, interviewer); viewed at Brandeis University, 7 August 2019.
Florian Traussnig, Military Resistance from the Outside. Austrians in the US Army and Intelligence Services in World War II [written in German]; “The Gallant Story of an Unlikely Soldier – Karl Frucht;” quoted from floriantraussnig.wordpress.com.

k Karl Frucht, “From the American Scene: We Were a P.W.I. Team,” in
Commentary Magazine, January 1946.
l Karl Frucht, Verlustanzeige: Ein Uberlebensbericht (German Edition), Kremayr
& Scheriau, Vienna, 1992; with passages translated for me by Wim de Kok, President of World Animal Net, in personal communication, 8 July 2019; and also with Google Translator.
m Sandra Joerg-Madone, Switzerland; personal communication, 25 April 1991.
n “Healthy Life, ethical ecological and health aspects of meat consumption,” a
Pythagoras symposium and exhibition in the Ministry of Environmental
Affairs, Vienna; 27-29 September 1990.
Film
A documentary by Pierre Sauvage, And Crown Thy Good: Varian Fry and the Refugee Crisis, Marseille 1940-41, should be finished in late 2020. (Personal communication) Filmmaker Sauvage is also the president of the Varian Fry Institute, a division of the Chambon Foundation (Los Angeles, California) which has its focus on the Holocaust and its aftermath.

Anna Garrity’s School of Dance -006

August 3, 2019Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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Little Architects of Time and Space: Poems by Susan Nissenbaum Becker (non-fiction)
Published by WordTech Communications/Word Poetry (2013)

La Pedicure, A Symphony in Four Movements -005

July 1, 2019Episodesmysteriesmythsandmore

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“Finding Wabi-Sabi,”Lauren Hendrick, p. “Z1,” Better Homes & Gardens, June 2019. (Fiction)

Mysteries, Myths & More

Joyce Keller Walsh