1
00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:04,280
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:14,360
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson

3
00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:18,960
Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Fry talked about Joseph Grimaldy, sometimes called

4
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:23,280
Speaker 1: the first modern clown. This week, I sure did. This

5
00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:28,440
Speaker 1: episode came about I alluded I think in our previous episode.

6
00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:33,559
Speaker 1: I recently had COVID and that it's derailed. I'd had

7
00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:37,560
Speaker 1: to take sick time, and each of us had other

8
00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:42,279
Speaker 1: already previously planned time off, and then also some unexpected

9
00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:45,360
Speaker 1: stuff happened. But there's just a lot going on. And

10
00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:48,080
Speaker 1: so I was in one of those places where I

11
00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:50,239
Speaker 1: was like, I've got to find something that is doable

12
00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:53,040
Speaker 1: in the amount of time that I have to write

13
00:00:53,040 --> 00:00:57,720
Speaker 1: an episode. Yeah, And often something that is doable is

14
00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:02,120
Speaker 1: when somebody has an autobiography or a memoir or something

15
00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:04,959
Speaker 1: similar that is in the public domain. That can be

16
00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:06,800
Speaker 1: a big part of the research, and like we can

17
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:09,280
Speaker 1: reference their own words directly in that kind of thing.

18
00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:11,520
Speaker 1: Like that is one of the tools when we have

19
00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:14,720
Speaker 1: to fill a gap in this way sometimes. Uh. And

20
00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:16,520
Speaker 1: so I had been like, all right, I'm gonna I'm

21
00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:19,440
Speaker 1: gonna do something like that, and then I used almost

22
00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:25,280
Speaker 1: none of Grimaldy's memoirs because they even though they are

23
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:27,640
Speaker 1: in the public domain, they do not read like a

24
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:29,840
Speaker 1: memoir at all. They read like a Dickens's novel, as

25
00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:32,360
Speaker 1: we talked about, and so there's just like only I

26
00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:34,440
Speaker 1: think one or maybe two quotes from it in the

27
00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:38,280
Speaker 1: entire episode. So it's uh. While the episode did get

28
00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:40,880
Speaker 1: written in the amount of time involved, it did not

29
00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:45,080
Speaker 1: have as much reliance on that memoir as I had

30
00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:49,760
Speaker 1: thought it was going to. Also something that I did

31
00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:53,640
Speaker 1: not put in into the episode. Charles Dickens, as we said,

32
00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:56,080
Speaker 1: had seen some of Grimaldy's performances when he was a kid,

33
00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:59,880
Speaker 1: seemed to really like the pantomime. Seems to have made

34
00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:02,800
Speaker 1: not been as much of a fan of Grimaldy later

35
00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:05,640
Speaker 1: on when he was actually working with this memoir and

36
00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:10,200
Speaker 1: writing sketches from bass and stuff like that. He also

37
00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:14,400
Speaker 1: has a couple of creepy clown appearances in some of

38
00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:18,600
Speaker 1: his other writing, including one that some people think is

39
00:02:18,639 --> 00:02:23,680
Speaker 1: a specific reference to Grimaldy's son JS. It can't have

40
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:28,240
Speaker 1: been a reference to Grimaldy because this book was written

41
00:02:28,320 --> 00:02:31,120
Speaker 1: like before Grimaldi's death, I think, so people think it

42
00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:33,840
Speaker 1: was proudly about JS and that's it's the Pickwick Papers.

43
00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:36,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so I'm going to read this little passage

44
00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:39,520
Speaker 1: from the Pickwick Papers about this time, and when he

45
00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:42,040
Speaker 1: had been existing for upwards of a year. No one

46
00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:44,560
Speaker 1: knew how. I had a short engagement at one of

47
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:46,960
Speaker 1: the theaters on the Surrey side of the water. And

48
00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:50,480
Speaker 1: here I saw this man whom I had lost sight

49
00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:52,919
Speaker 1: of for some time, for I had been traveling in

50
00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:56,080
Speaker 1: the provinces, and he had been skulking in the lanes

51
00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:58,720
Speaker 1: and alleys of London. I was dressed to leave the

52
00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:01,400
Speaker 1: house and was crossing the stage on my way out

53
00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:05,160
Speaker 1: when he tapped me on the shoulder. Never shall I

54
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:08,480
Speaker 1: forget the repulsive sight that met my eye when I

55
00:03:08,639 --> 00:03:11,960
Speaker 1: turned round. He was dressed for the pantomimes, and all

56
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:16,160
Speaker 1: the absurdity of a clown's costume, the spectral figures, and

57
00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:19,240
Speaker 1: the dance of death. The most frightful shapes that the

58
00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:24,760
Speaker 1: ablest painter ever portrayed on canvas never presented an appearance

59
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:29,520
Speaker 1: half so ghastly. His bloated body and shrunken legs, their

60
00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:34,520
Speaker 1: deformity enhanced a hundredfold by the fantastic dress, the glassy

61
00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 1: eyes contrasting fearfully with the thick white paint with which

62
00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:43,560
Speaker 1: the face was besmeared, and the grotesquely ornamented head trembling

63
00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:47,480
Speaker 1: with paralysis, and the long, skinny hands rubbed with white chalk,

64
00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:51,600
Speaker 1: all gave him a hideous and unnatural appearance of which

65
00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:55,880
Speaker 1: no description could convey an adequate idea, and which to

66
00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:59,280
Speaker 1: this day I shudder to think of. His voice was

67
00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:01,960
Speaker 1: hollow and tremulous as he took me aside, and, in

68
00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:07,120
Speaker 1: broken words, recounted a long catalog of sickness and privations, terminating,

69
00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:10,120
Speaker 1: as usual, with an urgent request for the loan of

70
00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:13,000
Speaker 1: a trifling sum of money. I put a few shillings

71
00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,280
Speaker 1: in his hand, and as I turned away, I heard

72
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:18,719
Speaker 1: the roar of laughter which followed his first tumble on

73
00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:22,520
Speaker 1: the stage. So that maybe could be Grimaldi, Maybe could

74
00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:25,159
Speaker 1: be Jeff JS. Most things that I saw were like,

75
00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:28,720
Speaker 1: it's probably about JS, because it seems, I think, if

76
00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:33,040
Speaker 1: I'm remembering correctly, it was written not long after JS

77
00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:36,599
Speaker 1: died a very young age. I love that clowns have

78
00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:42,120
Speaker 1: always been a delight to some and terrifying to us. Yeah, yeah,

79
00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:46,000
Speaker 1: And I like, I don't think that the dickens edition

80
00:04:46,080 --> 00:04:49,960
Speaker 1: of his memoirs was necessarily like the first time ever

81
00:04:50,080 --> 00:04:52,719
Speaker 1: that there was this dichotomy of like the sad clown

82
00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:55,039
Speaker 1: and the clown with the tragic backstory and like the

83
00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:58,599
Speaker 1: person who's outwardly funny and inwardly depressed and grief stricken

84
00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:02,520
Speaker 1: all the time. But he sure did like cement it

85
00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:07,279
Speaker 1: with that book. Well, and now right now they're they're

86
00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:13,000
Speaker 1: recognized like four different types of clowns, like the white face,

87
00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:17,080
Speaker 1: the Augusta Tramp, and the character and yeah, yeah, yeah,

88
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:20,719
Speaker 1: this is kind of the modern genesis of that. Yeah.

89
00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:24,000
Speaker 1: I had thought about putting in more about sort of

90
00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:28,320
Speaker 1: the history of clowning and that development of like the

91
00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:32,159
Speaker 1: the white face, Auguste Tramp, and character that you just mentioned, like,

92
00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:37,560
Speaker 1: and part of it was that it just felt like

93
00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:39,440
Speaker 1: like there are so many things in so many cultures

94
00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:42,240
Speaker 1: around the world that can fit into the big umbrella

95
00:05:42,279 --> 00:05:45,279
Speaker 1: of clowning. Yes, for sure, that part just seemed like

96
00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:50,160
Speaker 1: it was like it was getting too big. But then

97
00:05:50,279 --> 00:05:57,560
Speaker 1: also I found the specifics of the like progression of

98
00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:04,479
Speaker 1: clowning sort of being at least here maybe in Europe,

99
00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:09,159
Speaker 1: to like include these four types. I found a lot

100
00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:11,680
Speaker 1: of like the sourcing on that really vague, and I

101
00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:13,400
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I don't want to I don't want

102
00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:15,640
Speaker 1: to put this in here when it when I think

103
00:06:15,640 --> 00:06:18,400
Speaker 1: it might be a little more nebulous than some of

104
00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:20,840
Speaker 1: these sources make it sound like have I ever told

105
00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:25,880
Speaker 1: you the story of when my clown association terrified my husband? No? So,

106
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:30,039
Speaker 1: as some folks know, Brian and I got married very quickly,

107
00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:33,040
Speaker 1: so like, there were a lot of times where we

108
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:36,279
Speaker 1: were many years into our marriage and discovered something completely

109
00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:38,640
Speaker 1: new about one another. And at one point we were

110
00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:42,920
Speaker 1: at a party at our mutual friend Lily's house, and

111
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:45,720
Speaker 1: one of the things she had out was a dish

112
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,720
Speaker 1: of like those long, thin balloons you used to make

113
00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:51,919
Speaker 1: balloon animals, okay, And I blew one up and I

114
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:55,920
Speaker 1: made a poodle okay. And Brian said, where'd you learn

115
00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:58,120
Speaker 1: to do that? And I said, the clowns taught me.

116
00:06:58,520 --> 00:07:04,159
Speaker 1: And he said, the clowns taught you. And that was

117
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 1: when I had to explain, like, if you grow up

118
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,320
Speaker 1: in certain parts of Florida, yeah, and you were in

119
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:14,800
Speaker 1: you know, theatery circles, you just know clowns because there's

120
00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:19,440
Speaker 1: the big clown school there, and they kind of spread out. Sure,

121
00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:23,000
Speaker 1: so of course I knew clown's growing up, but it

122
00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:26,560
Speaker 1: never occurred to me that other people didn't know clouds. Yeah,

123
00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:30,240
Speaker 1: so I was like the clouds taught me. I think

124
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:32,160
Speaker 1: we've talked before about how when I was a kid,

125
00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,760
Speaker 1: I was in a summer musical theater program and one

126
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:38,680
Speaker 1: year the show that we did was Barnum, which is

127
00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:43,400
Speaker 1: a musical about the life of P. T. Barnum. That's

128
00:07:43,480 --> 00:07:47,400
Speaker 1: not the same as the movie. That's not that old, right,

129
00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:51,720
Speaker 1: and so all of like what would be the chorus,

130
00:07:52,240 --> 00:07:55,200
Speaker 1: We were all clowns, and so we learned a number

131
00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:58,960
Speaker 1: of like very basic clowning things and different types of

132
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:05,520
Speaker 1: clown makeup. And I learned to juggle badly, and uh

133
00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:09,760
Speaker 1: there was something else, Oh, balloon animals. I can also

134
00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:13,520
Speaker 1: make a balloon noodle. It's not very it's not Yeah,

135
00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:17,400
Speaker 1: it's not that. It's not that difficult from uh like

136
00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:18,800
Speaker 1: once you knew the base with how to do it.

137
00:08:18,840 --> 00:08:22,760
Speaker 1: So yeah, like that's that's my one very brief brief

138
00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:26,080
Speaker 1: for a into clowning was being part of the chorus

139
00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:31,040
Speaker 1: in uh summer middle and high school production of the

140
00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:44,240
Speaker 1: play Barnum. The Clowns taught me. You had asked me

141
00:08:45,320 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 1: before we started this, was he on your list? And

142
00:08:48,200 --> 00:08:55,720
Speaker 1: the answer was no, and the reason was depressing. Oh yeah,

143
00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:57,880
Speaker 1: this is one of those things, right. I was talking

144
00:08:57,920 --> 00:08:59,680
Speaker 1: to a friend of mine about this the other day,

145
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:04,560
Speaker 1: and again I'm obviously not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but

146
00:09:04,640 --> 00:09:07,680
Speaker 1: it is one of those things where we had just

147
00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:10,720
Speaker 1: discussed and it applies to this, that thing where it's like,

148
00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,200
Speaker 1: you can do so many things in your life and

149
00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:17,880
Speaker 1: have so many experiences, but at the end of the day,

150
00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:22,240
Speaker 1: your childhood trauma drives the bus. I think that you

151
00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:26,479
Speaker 1: have to always be working on whatever those formative experiences

152
00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:30,280
Speaker 1: are that otherwise you just end up kind of falling

153
00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:33,320
Speaker 1: into weird habits that kind of perpetuate the same problems.

154
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:36,640
Speaker 1: And I feel like Grimaldi is such an example of that, right,

155
00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:42,000
Speaker 1: Like he obviously had a very difficult childhood with a

156
00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:46,440
Speaker 1: parent who did not treat him well. And it's like

157
00:09:46,520 --> 00:09:50,360
Speaker 1: you then see him spending his entire life trying to

158
00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:54,520
Speaker 1: make people happy and make people like him. Right, It's

159
00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:56,840
Speaker 1: that thing of like, I only want to make you happy,

160
00:09:56,880 --> 00:09:58,760
Speaker 1: and also you will like me and that will make

161
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:01,360
Speaker 1: me happy, and like, at the same time, he is

162
00:10:01,679 --> 00:10:05,520
Speaker 1: having breakdowns in his dressing room. It's like and it's like, oh,

163
00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:07,080
Speaker 1: I just want to go back and get him a

164
00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:10,240
Speaker 1: therapist and hug him, make him some nice tea and

165
00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:14,240
Speaker 1: let him just sit quietly. If that's yeah, a therapist,

166
00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:19,319
Speaker 1: then maybe also like a trainer or a competent doctor, right,

167
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:23,800
Speaker 1: like somebody to talk about some body mechanics and maybe

168
00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:29,080
Speaker 1: if there were some physical, muscular or skeletal issue going on,

169
00:10:29,120 --> 00:10:32,319
Speaker 1: to like maybe address that, because it seems it does

170
00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:37,520
Speaker 1: seem like, uh, he was just constantly pushing himself, yeah,

171
00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:41,320
Speaker 1: in a in a way that was harmful to his body. Yeah.

172
00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:44,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, I will also say, on a funnier note,

173
00:10:44,920 --> 00:10:47,240
Speaker 1: I'm glad that for the most part, we have gotten

174
00:10:47,280 --> 00:10:51,000
Speaker 1: away from titles of things that are the blobbery, bloop

175
00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:57,640
Speaker 1: or or the like. There's a lot of things too many,

176
00:10:58,160 --> 00:11:02,800
Speaker 1: too many words, and clown church service has now gone

177
00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:06,200
Speaker 1: on my bucket list, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't.

178
00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:09,480
Speaker 1: As a behind the scenes secret, I was supposed to

179
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,640
Speaker 1: read that line and for some time, for some reason,

180
00:11:11,679 --> 00:11:13,800
Speaker 1: the very idea got me so choked up that Tracy

181
00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:16,720
Speaker 1: had to read it. Yeah, the the clown church service,

182
00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:21,760
Speaker 1: I don't know why that hit by heart, So yeah, aggressively.

183
00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:29,280
Speaker 1: There's a biography of Grimaldy called The Pantomime Life of

184
00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:32,640
Speaker 1: Joseph Grimaldy Laughter Madness in the Story of Britain's Greatest

185
00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:37,880
Speaker 1: Comedian by Andrew McConnell Stott, which was one of like

186
00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,080
Speaker 1: a bunch of different sources that were part of this episode.

187
00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:44,040
Speaker 1: It's got just it's much longer than this episode, obviously.

188
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:45,480
Speaker 1: It has just a ton of detail that we did

189
00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:51,679
Speaker 1: not talk about at all, and I if I'm remembering rightly,

190
00:11:51,760 --> 00:11:55,120
Speaker 1: it starts with his effort to get to that church

191
00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:58,960
Speaker 1: service and there was a flight delay and it was like,

192
00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:03,760
Speaker 1: is it gonna happen or not? So yeah, yeah, I

193
00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:06,679
Speaker 1: recommend that book if you want tons more detail than

194
00:12:06,679 --> 00:12:19,440
Speaker 1: what we talked about. So yeah, we talked about apples

195
00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:22,880
Speaker 1: this week, Tracy. We sure did. I love apples. I

196
00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:26,920
Speaker 1: do too. I don't bake with them as often as

197
00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:29,200
Speaker 1: one might think, but I sure do you like to

198
00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:31,720
Speaker 1: eat them. I just love a little chopped apple and

199
00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:36,040
Speaker 1: just about anything. One of the things I wanted to

200
00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:39,280
Speaker 1: call out and mention we mentioned at the end of

201
00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:43,640
Speaker 1: that episode that there has been you know, at various

202
00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:47,240
Speaker 1: times there have been efforts for people to try to

203
00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:51,160
Speaker 1: get the Ontario government or even the bigger Canadian government

204
00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:57,400
Speaker 1: to do something to really recognize the Macintosh and its importance,

205
00:12:57,480 --> 00:13:00,000
Speaker 1: because you know, it obviously not only is a delicious

206
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:02,080
Speaker 1: thing that many people like, but it has been a

207
00:13:02,080 --> 00:13:06,040
Speaker 1: big part of the economy of Ontario and and really

208
00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:08,040
Speaker 1: around the world for a lot of growers. At this point,

209
00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:13,959
Speaker 1: that hasn't happened. But Sandra Bextad, who we mentioned in

210
00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:17,400
Speaker 1: the course of the thing. She's is the woman who

211
00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:23,760
Speaker 1: owns the orchard where the last of the first generation

212
00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:29,000
Speaker 1: trees recently died. She has her own little mission where she,

213
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:31,440
Speaker 1: you know, has they have a store at their orchard,

214
00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:34,120
Speaker 1: like many orchards do, and she includes a lot of

215
00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:37,120
Speaker 1: historical information. She invites school groups to come and she

216
00:13:37,280 --> 00:13:40,600
Speaker 1: talks about it. They talk about the Macintosh and its heritage,

217
00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:43,720
Speaker 1: but also like other apples that came from it, and

218
00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:46,360
Speaker 1: and how that all relates to local history. I just

219
00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:47,880
Speaker 1: think that's cool. I want to give her a shout

220
00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:52,880
Speaker 1: out for being like a grassroots educator. There was also

221
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:56,640
Speaker 1: an interesting thing that came about when the sale of

222
00:13:56,679 --> 00:13:59,920
Speaker 1: the Macintosh farm issue came up recently you know, that's

223
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:03,240
Speaker 1: only been a few years ago. It got picked up

224
00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:05,480
Speaker 1: by a lot of news outlets like the BBC and

225
00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:10,240
Speaker 1: CBC both ran multiple stories about it, but one particular

226
00:14:10,360 --> 00:14:17,200
Speaker 1: detail kept getting confused and relayed in completely opposite ways.

227
00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:22,600
Speaker 1: One was that the owner, mister Scoff, had put up

228
00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:24,880
Speaker 1: a lot of no trespassing signs because a lot of

229
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:27,320
Speaker 1: people would kind of try to sneak onto the property

230
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,120
Speaker 1: for pictures or just to see stuff or whatever, and

231
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:35,080
Speaker 1: he was getting frustrated, understandably. But the other is that

232
00:14:36,160 --> 00:14:38,200
Speaker 1: there were some that were like, he would love to

233
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:40,360
Speaker 1: give tours if you just asked him, and it's like,

234
00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:45,280
Speaker 1: I know, he's say one of these is potentially correct,

235
00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:47,360
Speaker 1: but both didn't really work because he seems to not

236
00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:49,720
Speaker 1: want anybody to bug him. So I don't know what

237
00:14:49,760 --> 00:14:52,760
Speaker 1: the scoop is there. If you, if you dear listeners

238
00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:54,720
Speaker 1: are looking up anything about it and you're like, wait,

239
00:14:56,160 --> 00:15:03,040
Speaker 1: we don't know either, that's very unclear. I will, once again,

240
00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:05,880
Speaker 1: as I often do in our behind the scenes, will

241
00:15:05,920 --> 00:15:10,480
Speaker 1: confess my own ignorance and a thing that I didn't

242
00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:15,480
Speaker 1: know for a really long time. Okay, that it's often

243
00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:20,360
Speaker 1: better to use, you know, apples that are not sweet

244
00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:25,640
Speaker 1: in your baking. Yeah. I was well into my adulthood

245
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:28,080
Speaker 1: by the time I learned that, because I kept being like,

246
00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:32,440
Speaker 1: why why is this mushy? And it's because the sugars

247
00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:35,960
Speaker 1: make them break down and get mushier. It's kind of

248
00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:40,440
Speaker 1: like how we said the macintosh breaks down more quickly

249
00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:42,960
Speaker 1: so you don't have to bake it as long. Right,

250
00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:45,560
Speaker 1: But that's also why it is, or it's related to

251
00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:47,960
Speaker 1: the fact that it is sweet when you eat it

252
00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:51,720
Speaker 1: raw versus right, the bramley, which is tart and retains

253
00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:55,040
Speaker 1: its shape better. Yeah, I didn't know these things. No,

254
00:15:55,760 --> 00:16:00,320
Speaker 1: I was honestly surprised at what sounds to me like

255
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:04,160
Speaker 1: kind of herculean efforts to keep the original brandy tree

256
00:16:04,200 --> 00:16:06,920
Speaker 1: alive in the face of it having a fungus that

257
00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:11,680
Speaker 1: can spread. And this is partly like, I have no

258
00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:17,040
Speaker 1: idea what steps they may be taking to try to

259
00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:22,920
Speaker 1: keep this fungus from spreading to other trees or plant

260
00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:27,040
Speaker 1: life nearby. And I don't think I've told this story

261
00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:29,960
Speaker 1: on the show before. When we bought the house that

262
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:34,040
Speaker 1: we live in, there were several rose bushes planted. Oh yeah,

263
00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:38,040
Speaker 1: you had witches broom. Yeah, yeah. I went out one

264
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:40,480
Speaker 1: day to deadhead the roses and I was like, why

265
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:43,800
Speaker 1: this Wow, this plant looks weird, and I was like,

266
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:47,240
Speaker 1: obviously this is disease. So I'm gonna do what I

267
00:16:47,480 --> 00:16:50,400
Speaker 1: know is like what a step to take, and like

268
00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:54,240
Speaker 1: cut away all the diseased part. And then later I

269
00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:57,960
Speaker 1: was like, I think I need to look up, Yeah,

270
00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:00,560
Speaker 1: what just happened, And what it was was this thing

271
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:05,480
Speaker 1: called rose rosette disease, which is spread by mites. And really,

272
00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:09,840
Speaker 1: like there are people who will try to save a

273
00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:12,560
Speaker 1: rose bush that's in like really early stages of it,

274
00:17:13,840 --> 00:17:16,399
Speaker 1: but like by the time it has spread to the

275
00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:19,639
Speaker 1: root area, you can't. It's not something you can really treat,

276
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:21,840
Speaker 1: and you really need to like dig up the whole

277
00:17:21,840 --> 00:17:25,880
Speaker 1: plant down to the root and destroy it to keep

278
00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:29,520
Speaker 1: it from And it was a huge bummer. Like the

279
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:32,520
Speaker 1: rose bushes were there when we bought the house. It

280
00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:34,399
Speaker 1: wasn't like I planted them, but one of them was

281
00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:36,879
Speaker 1: this little rose bush that really reminded me of one

282
00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:39,359
Speaker 1: at my parents house that my mom had planted. So

283
00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:41,240
Speaker 1: every time I saw this rose bush blooming, it like

284
00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:43,800
Speaker 1: reminded me of my mom. And I had to dig

285
00:17:43,840 --> 00:17:46,560
Speaker 1: the whole thing up down to the roots. And then

286
00:17:46,600 --> 00:17:49,440
Speaker 1: I realized that it had also infected the one next

287
00:17:49,480 --> 00:17:51,800
Speaker 1: to it, and I went ahead and dug that one

288
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:56,600
Speaker 1: up also. And so having had that whole experience the

289
00:17:56,760 --> 00:18:02,560
Speaker 1: idea of like keeping a tree with what sounds like

290
00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:05,199
Speaker 1: a fungus that can spread and harm other trees, I

291
00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:09,520
Speaker 1: was like, really, okay, I'm I mean, I don't know

292
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:11,840
Speaker 1: what what stuff they have in place. I do know

293
00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:14,080
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they have like a ground barrier so

294
00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:16,840
Speaker 1: the roots can't infect other things. I will say I

295
00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:19,200
Speaker 1: also have had witch. I call it Witch's Broom because

296
00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:23,399
Speaker 1: that's the that's one of the yeah I have had it.

297
00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:27,240
Speaker 1: And I had a very different reaction to you, which is, oh,

298
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:30,280
Speaker 1: that looks amazing. It looks like a demon. It looks

299
00:18:30,359 --> 00:18:33,880
Speaker 1: really cool. It makes your rose bush look very halloweeny.

300
00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:38,600
Speaker 1: It does. And I my reaction was, could I just

301
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:42,919
Speaker 1: let it happen? Oh? Yeah? But I also had to

302
00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:46,320
Speaker 1: dig up an old and very established rose bush in

303
00:18:46,359 --> 00:18:49,840
Speaker 1: my yard, which is just a pain in the toukist mane.

304
00:18:49,840 --> 00:18:52,840
Speaker 1: It is a big pain. I was more concerned about

305
00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:56,159
Speaker 1: like the neighbor's plants than my own plants, Like I

306
00:18:56,280 --> 00:18:58,119
Speaker 1: was just like I don't want to keep a plant

307
00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:01,920
Speaker 1: in my yard that could hurt my neighbors plants. Yeah,

308
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,919
Speaker 1: ours were. I mean, I have roses and I love them.

309
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,320
Speaker 1: We've talked about them on the show before. So I

310
00:19:07,359 --> 00:19:09,960
Speaker 1: also was like, oh, I just planted a really nice

311
00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:12,160
Speaker 1: rose bush. I really don't want that to get this

312
00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:14,960
Speaker 1: because even though it looks cool, I don't want it

313
00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:19,639
Speaker 1: to die, you know, I want my Twilight Zone roses

314
00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:24,720
Speaker 1: to live and flourish forever. The other super annoying thing

315
00:19:24,720 --> 00:19:27,600
Speaker 1: about my whole experience is that whoever had planted these

316
00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:30,160
Speaker 1: two rose bushes in our front yard had planted them

317
00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:34,399
Speaker 1: what is, in my opinion, perilously close to the gas line.

318
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:38,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we called the dial before you dig number

319
00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:41,080
Speaker 1: to have the gas line marked before I got the

320
00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:43,359
Speaker 1: shovel out to like dig up these rose bushes, and

321
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 1: I was like, it's literally right there. Yeah. Yeah. We

322
00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:51,080
Speaker 1: inherited a lot of rose bushes with our house and

323
00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:54,879
Speaker 1: I love them. But like, there have been some errors

324
00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:57,000
Speaker 1: in judgment along the way, and I don't know if

325
00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,119
Speaker 1: it's just like an inexperienced gardener, I can't say I

326
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:02,359
Speaker 1: would have done any better. At various points in time.

327
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:09,240
Speaker 1: But whoever owned our house before us planted these beautiful,

328
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:14,480
Speaker 1: very prolifically blooming red rose bushes, which I love. But

329
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:17,760
Speaker 1: they are right in front of the house, on either

330
00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:24,399
Speaker 1: side of the stairs, and they're climbers, so literally in

331
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:27,240
Speaker 1: the summer. There have been times where they've had a

332
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:29,480
Speaker 1: very healthy year and I have to clip them every

333
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:32,639
Speaker 1: single day because they are coming for you, like you

334
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:35,320
Speaker 1: can't get up and down the stairs without them snagging

335
00:20:35,359 --> 00:20:42,160
Speaker 1: your clothes, right, I love them, Yeah, I do want

336
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:44,639
Speaker 1: to get rid of I call it a filthy name

337
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:46,640
Speaker 1: we couldn't say on the show because I don't like it.

338
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:49,280
Speaker 1: We have a wax leaf privet also that's right by

339
00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:52,080
Speaker 1: the house that I don't like, and I keep saying

340
00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:53,760
Speaker 1: I want to hire a grown up to come and

341
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:58,040
Speaker 1: take it out and put in rose bushes that are

342
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:03,000
Speaker 1: meant to be full like privet style bushes. Sure, I

343
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:04,640
Speaker 1: don't know if we'll get to that at any point

344
00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:08,320
Speaker 1: in the near future. Not. I don't like that privet

345
00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:13,240
Speaker 1: though at all. And also we have my least favorite

346
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 1: plant on the planet, Virginia creeper. Oh, you're right, because

347
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,040
Speaker 1: you're allergic to it. So I'm one of those random

348
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 1: people who got the luck of the draw to be

349
00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:24,399
Speaker 1: very allergic to it, and I have had to go

350
00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:28,000
Speaker 1: to the emergency room because of reactions to it. It's

351
00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:32,680
Speaker 1: not cool anyway, plants, Yeah, I am. I will say

352
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:37,160
Speaker 1: this too. In pictures of the Bramley Tree. You would

353
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:40,280
Speaker 1: ask during the show, if the clone that they put

354
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:42,159
Speaker 1: next to it, and I'm air quoting next to it,

355
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:44,280
Speaker 1: how close it is? It's not because if you see

356
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:46,159
Speaker 1: pictures of the tree, it's not. You don't see the

357
00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:48,919
Speaker 1: other tree. And I will say, I don't see a

358
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:52,240
Speaker 1: lot of other plant life around it, Like there's like

359
00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 1: some grassy groundcover, I think, but it's not like there

360
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:58,680
Speaker 1: aren't any super close by things. And I think they

361
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:02,680
Speaker 1: are monitoring it so closely that it has kept most

362
00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:07,760
Speaker 1: of the above ground fungus managed in at bay. Like

363
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:09,920
Speaker 1: when you look at pictures, you can see some of

364
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:11,719
Speaker 1: the tree is dead, but like you don't see the

365
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 1: white that white sticky film that I associate with something

366
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:19,400
Speaker 1: like that. So I think they're probably being pretty arduous

367
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: about keeping it as controlled as possible. And we'll see

368
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:26,400
Speaker 1: how long the Bramley Tree lasts, But as of right now,

369
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 1: you could go visit it. They let people visit nice

370
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 1: that might go on my bucket list for my next

371
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:39,679
Speaker 1: trip to England. I know that this weekend, for what

372
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 1: I have of it, which is not much because I'm

373
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 1: doing some traveling and prep, I need to take care

374
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: of my yard and do some mowing. So this is

375
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 1: all a very timely discussion. If you have a weekend

376
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,159
Speaker 1: ahead of you, I hope whatever you do it's delightful.

377
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 1: I personally like mowing, so that doesn't sound bad to

378
00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 1: me at all. Whatever you have, whether you have time

379
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:02,719
Speaker 1: off or not, I hope that you are able to

380
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,600
Speaker 1: take some time to take care of yourself, not only

381
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: take care of other people, although that is also a

382
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 1: good and noble thing to do, but you also need

383
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: to be recharged. And we will be right back here

384
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,439
Speaker 1: tomorrow with a classic and then on Monday with a

385
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 1: brand new episode. Stuff you Missed in History Class is

386
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

387
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

388
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.