Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Travel anywhere in the world and you will
Speaker 1: learn just how different other cultures can be from our own.
Speaker 1: Nowhere is this more evident than in their holidays. For example,
Speaker 1: Christmas isn't widely celebrated in Japan. Only one percent of
Speaker 1: the population there identifies as Christian, and those who participate
Speaker 1: in the festivities do so differently from other countries. In Japan,
Speaker 1: many people don't cook a turkey with all the trimmings
Speaker 1: for their Christmas inner. They go to KFC. The tradition
Speaker 1: started back in nineteen seventy four, when the fast food
Speaker 1: chain began offering a holiday themed meal based on the
Speaker 1: standard fair that Americans ate at holiday time. Almost fifty
Speaker 1: years later, KFC is still so popular during Christmas that
Speaker 1: orders must be placed months in advance. Mexico, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, is home to a yearly festival every December,
Speaker 1: known as the Night of the Radishes. The purple root
Speaker 1: vegetables are grown specifically for this three day events and
Speaker 1: are carved into elaborate statues and dioramas. Carvings are begun
Speaker 1: the morning of December twenty three and finished by that
Speaker 1: evening so everyone can enjoy the finished artworks over the
Speaker 1: next few days. Meanwhile, a very different kind of holiday
Speaker 1: is celebrated in Netherland, Colorado. It's centered around a man
Speaker 1: named Bretto Morstol, otherwise known as Grandpa Bretto. Grandpa Bretto
Speaker 1: was born and raised in Norway. He was a fan
Speaker 1: of the outdoors and spent much of his time hiking
Speaker 1: and fishing during the warmer months, while skiing in the winter.
Speaker 1: He loved being outside so much he made his living
Speaker 1: at it for thirty years as a park director where
Speaker 1: he lived. Grandpa Bretto sadly died in nine of a
Speaker 1: heart condition, but his family wasn't quite ready to lose
Speaker 1: him just yet. They had him put on ice and
Speaker 1: shipped to Oakland, California, where a cryonics facility was standing
Speaker 1: by to preserve his body with liquid nitrogen. He stayed
Speaker 1: there suspended for four years until his body was reclaimed
Speaker 1: by his daughter and her son, who had been working
Speaker 1: on a cryonics initiative of their own in Colorado. Their
Speaker 1: efforts didn't last long, however. The grandson was deported from
Speaker 1: the u S after his visa had expired, and so
Speaker 1: Grandpa Bretto's daughter Odd hid her father's frozen body in
Speaker 1: a shed behind her house, packed with dry ice. Things
Speaker 1: only went from bad to worse after that. She had
Speaker 1: already lost her son and now she was in danger
Speaker 1: of losing her father again. The authorities evicted Odd from
Speaker 1: her home for living there without any running water or electricity.
Speaker 1: Without her there to monitor the condition of her father's body,
Speaker 1: she was worried he would fall out and decompose, so
Speaker 1: the city gave her an ultimatum disposed of the corpse
Speaker 1: or spend ten days in jail. In fact, the whole
Speaker 1: ordeal had forced to change to the city's local ordinances.
Speaker 1: From that point forward, no resident of Netherland, Colorado would
Speaker 1: be allowed to store a dead body on their property.
Speaker 1: That went for beloved pets too. Odd and Grandpa Bretto, however,
Speaker 1: were the exception. Because the story had brought so much
Speaker 1: unwanted attention to the city, they allowed the deceased patriarch
Speaker 1: to stay in his shed. Unfortunately, there was still the
Speaker 1: matter of his upkeep, which required considerable amounts of dry
Speaker 1: ice to preserve his condition. Luckily for him, that also
Speaker 1: had been taken care of. His grandson had put out
Speaker 1: a classified ad seeking to hire someone to tend to
Speaker 1: his grandfather's frozen body. Bow Schaffer, the CEO of a
Speaker 1: local cryonics company, answered the call. He started coming to
Speaker 1: the shed once a month along with several volunteers and
Speaker 1: six hundred pounds of dry ice, which they would pack
Speaker 1: against Grandpa Bretto's coffin, keeping him at a frosty minus
Speaker 1: sixty degrees fahrenheit. The manufacturer of the shed he'd been
Speaker 1: stored in also got involved and built Grandpa Bretto a
Speaker 1: new enclosure that would better facilitate Shaffer's preservation efforts. All
Speaker 1: of this fuss turned Grandpa Bretto into a local celebrity,
Speaker 1: so much so that in two thousand two a holiday
Speaker 1: was started in his name, well sort of. Frozen Dead
Speaker 1: Guy Days is a two day festival celebrated quite appropriately
Speaker 1: over a weekend in March, just as winter begins to
Speaker 1: thaw and spring buds bloom. Among the many activities. There
Speaker 1: are live music performances, tours of Grandpa Bretto's shed, coffin races,
Speaker 1: and even a Grandpa Bretto lookalike contest. A local ice
Speaker 1: cream company also sells a special flavor aptlete called Frozen
Speaker 1: Dead Guy, made of dark blue ice cream to symbolize
Speaker 1: the festival's namesake. Crushed up oreos for the dirt and
Speaker 1: sour gummy worms crawling out of it. Yeah, Frozen Dead
Speaker 1: Guy Days has been known to draw as many as
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand people to Netherland, Colorado, making the icy
Speaker 1: celebration the hottest ticket in town. You might not realize
Speaker 1: it at first, but the buildings and rooms we passed
Speaker 1: through every day are home to all kinds of secrets.
Speaker 1: Walk the streets of New York or Philadelphia and you
Speaker 1: might notice symbols on the buildings. A letter g or
Speaker 1: an hour glass could indicate that it had been built
Speaker 1: by Freemasons. Freemasons have become the stuff of legend, who
Speaker 1: often find themselves the subject of countless books and films,
Speaker 1: and for good reason. Lost treasures, the knights, templar, secret rooms,
Speaker 1: and passageways. It's enough to warrant an action movie or
Speaker 1: three for a sculpture named John. His status as a
Speaker 1: Freemason would allow him to build the most important room
Speaker 1: in America, one that no one would ever see. John
Speaker 1: was born in eighteen sixty seven in an unincorporated part
Speaker 1: of the US known as Idaho Territory. He grew up
Speaker 1: in a family of Mormon polygamists, his father making a
Speaker 1: living as a talented carpenter. As the family moved around
Speaker 1: the country, first to Missouri than to Nebraska, John began
Speaker 1: working with his hands like his father. Eventually he channeled
Speaker 1: his passion into sculpture. He studied art in both San
Speaker 1: Francisco and Paris for some time before returning to the
Speaker 1: US setting up shop in New York City. It wasn't
Speaker 1: long before one of his sculptures was bought and put
Speaker 1: on display by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a first
Speaker 1: for a living American sculpture. The Church of Saint John
Speaker 1: the Divine then hired him the craft statues of the
Speaker 1: Twelve Apostles for the exterior of their cathedral. However, John
Speaker 1: had greater aspirations. Literally, on the advice of his wife,
Speaker 1: he turned toward creating massive works, such as a giant
Speaker 1: bust of President Abraham Lincoln. The marble statue currently sits
Speaker 1: in the Capital Crypt in Washington, d c. His work
Speaker 1: only grew from there, and John graduated from Marble to
Speaker 1: the courts Monza Knighte of Stone Mountain in Georgia. He
Speaker 1: had been hired by c Helen Plaine, a member of
Speaker 1: the Knighted Daughters of the Confederacy who wanted to honor
Speaker 1: her ancestors. She tasked him with carving a gigantic bob
Speaker 1: relief into its side. John's original plan was to depict
Speaker 1: a procession of the three most important Confederate leaders of
Speaker 1: the Civil War, General Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and General
Speaker 1: Robert E. Lee, as well as a thousand soldiers behind them,
Speaker 1: but the project was plagued by issues, mostly monetary, and
Speaker 1: so John was fired after having only carved out part
Speaker 1: of Lee's head. He then destroyed his blueprints and models,
Speaker 1: fleeing to North Carolina to avoid a war that had
Speaker 1: been issued for his arrest. The rest of the memorial
Speaker 1: was completed over the next four decades by numerous sculptors
Speaker 1: and architects, and was finally opened to the public on
Speaker 1: April fourteenth of nineteen sixty five, exactly one hundred years
Speaker 1: after Lincoln's assassination. Despite his reputation for arrogance and being
Speaker 1: difficult to work with, as well as his ties to
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan, John was still in high demand.
Speaker 1: A new project on the Horizon would cement his name
Speaker 1: into the history book as one of the greatest and
Speaker 1: most problematic sculptors of all time. The task one room,
Speaker 1: a room that measured a hundred feet long and eighty
Speaker 1: feet tall. Built into its stone walls, John envisioned brass
Speaker 1: cabinets meant to house the most important items in American history,
Speaker 1: namely the Declaration of Independence and the U s Constitution.
Speaker 1: It was intended to be an ode to American exceptionalism,
Speaker 1: complete with key events in the country's history carved into
Speaker 1: the sides, as well as busts of United States presidents, scientists, artists,
Speaker 1: and industrialists. John and his fellow Freemason started working on
Speaker 1: it in the summer of nineteen thirty eight, continuing until
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, when two major issues brought the project
Speaker 1: to a halt. For one, the US was entering World
Speaker 1: War Two and funding was going to dry up for
Speaker 1: some time. Secondly, John passed away in March of that year.
Speaker 1: His work would have to be completed without him. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the Hall of Records was abandoned for sixty years. In
Speaker 1: that time, the scope change cansiderably. For one, it would
Speaker 1: no longer hold the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution,
Speaker 1: well not exactly. Instead of the original parchment documents, the
Speaker 1: Hall of Records contains a single wooden box, inside of
Speaker 1: which were placed sixteen porcelain plates, and on those plates
Speaker 1: were written the complete texts of the Constitution, the Bill
Speaker 1: of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. The box was
Speaker 1: then stored in a titanium vault beneath a halfton granite
Speaker 1: capstone at the hall's entrance. No one is allowed inside
Speaker 1: the Hall of Records. In fact, most people can't even
Speaker 1: see it, despite its prominent location. That's because it's creator,
Speaker 1: John G. Borg Lam, built it right behind Abraham Lincoln's
Speaker 1: head into the side of Mount Rushmore. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: aided by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye