Episode 85 kicks off with one of Cape Cod's most significant claims to fame in the annals of American history. At the turn of the 20th century young Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi perfected wireless communication. On a remote stretch of bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the first two-way wireless communication was sent in 1903. We take a look back at the original Marconi Station site in Wellfleet and the impact Marconi had on present-day technology.
The Green Mountain State is filled with untold numbers of beautiful sites and quintessential New England towns. One such town is Rutland, Vermont. In this week's Road Trip we check out the culture, history, shopping, skiing, and more that make this a destination during any of the four seasons.
Long before the present day, when video games are easily accessible on smartphones, computers, and consoles, there was a different way to get your gaming fix. Though still around today the video arcade truly had its heyday in the late 1970s through the early 1990s. We go way Back In the Day to the dawning of the video arcade, some of the most popular games, and what led to its decline.
In Episode 43 we looked at the Top 5 funniest As-Seen On TV products. This week we are looking at the worst. These are some of the lowest-rated, much-maligned products that for some reason made their inventors money. Did you purchase any of these?
There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule that looks back at the unbelievable but true story of Phineas Gage.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 84 here.
Episode 85 kicks off with one of Cape Cod's most significant claims to fame in the annals of American history. At the turn of the 20th century young Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi perfected wireless communication. On a remote stretch of bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the first two-way wireless communication was sent in 1903. We take a look back at the original Marconi Station site in Wellfleet and the impact Marconi had on present-day technology.
The Green Mountain State is filled with untold numbers of beautiful sites and quintessential New England towns. One such town is Rutland, Vermont. In this week's Road Trip we check out the culture, history, shopping, skiing, and more that make this a destination during any of the four seasons.
Long before the present day, when video games are easily accessible on smartphones, computers, and consoles, there was a different way to get your gaming fix. Though still around today the video arcade truly had its heyday in the late 1970s through the early 1990s. We go way Back In the Day to the dawning of the video arcade, some of the most popular games, and what led to its decline.
In Episode 43 we looked at the Top 5 funniest As-Seen On TV products. This week we are looking at the worst. These are some of the lowest-rated, much-maligned products that for some reason made their inventors money. Did you purchase any of these?
There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule that looks back at the unbelievable but true story of Phineas Gage.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 84 here.
Intro
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 85. This week's episode is going to kick off with one of Cape Cod's biggest claims to fame in terms of world history. And that is the Marconi Wireless Station site in Wellfleet. We're going to take a road trip up north, at least for me to the town of Rutland, Vermont. We're gonna go way back in the day and look at what it was like to be a kid during the heyday of the video arcade. We're going to have a brand new top five that are the top five worst As Seen on TV products ever. And there'll be a brand new this week in history and Time Capsule all coming up right now on episode 85 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Labor Day passed last week, fall starts next week. It's the changing of the seasons. And it's the start of my favorite time of year which lasts all the way through till New Year's. I hope all of you out there at least have something to look forward to at the end of the year. A lot of people love Halloween, and a lot love eating a lot on Thanksgiving. A lot of people love the holidays in December. For me, there's all of that plus the fall weather plus a lot of family celebrations, birthdays, et cetera. It's the start of our kind of second summer on Cape Cod, where just because Labor Day ends doesn't mean that the weather suddenly gets cold. It's beautiful. The weather is still warm, the water is warm, the beaches are empty, and basically, we locals can reclaim our home. But like I say at the top of all these podcasts, Cape Cod is a vacation destination. And if you need any more proof on Labor Day, when people were all flooding off of the cape mass exodus traffic was backed up 23 miles on the highway all the way to what used to be exit nine until we changed our exit numbers last year for whatever reason. I remember as a kid always going to the nearest overpass it wasn't that far for us to walk like 10 minutes and waving to the people as they left for the offseason. And that was something I thought was a tradition that died out in recent times. But I guess not I saw people posting pictures of others waving as they were leaving the cape. So that's a nice throwback that's still going on. Thank you, of course to everybody who's been tuning into the podcast, sharing it leaving reviews, and donating if you can, when you go to buy me a coffee.com Just find the In My Footsteps podcast. But like I said you don't have to donate sharing means even more getting more eyes on it. And we'll see if we can make September the fourth consecutive month with setting a record for the most downloads for the podcast. But fall starts in about a week. Soon I'll be sharing fall foliage, ideas places to go. But not yet. We're going to start Episode 85 with a look at I said Cape Cod's biggest claim to fame as far as world history which might be a little bit of an overreach. But in terms of wireless communication, which when you think about it, it's smartphones, its laptops, Cape Cod is very much interconnected with that. So let's dive right into the Marconi wireless communication station site in Wellfleet. And its story and its impact are all coming up right now on episode 85 of the In My Footsteps podcast.
Marconi Wireless Station
On January 18 1903. The first ever two-way wireless communication took place between President Theodore Roosevelt and England's King Edward the Seventh. It changed the landscape of communication forever and paved the way for radio and television to become a staple of life only a few decades later. The site for this historic milestone was not a big city. It was a remote section of beach in Wellfleet on Cape Cod and Massachusetts. The man behind this newfound wonder was Guglielmo Marconi. This is the story of his wireless station that changed the world forever. Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy on April 25 1874. He became a physicist and in 1894 first began experimenting with radio waves as a student at the Livorno Technical Institute in Rome, basing his work on advancing the previous work of Henry Hertz and Oliver Lodge, Marconi was able to develop a basic system of wireless telegraphy. From there he received his first patent in England in 1897. After founding the England-based Marconi Telegraph Company in 1899, Marconi got started on perfecting his wireless telegraph. His first transmission traveled only a mile and a half but was a success. In March 1900, rumors circulated that perhaps a Marconi Wireless Station could be constructed on the Nantucket South Shoal Lightship to ensure a clear path between receivers, Marconi looked for a companion site to his Wireless Station in Poldhu on England's west coast. He found a perfect location in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Plans for the construction of a wireless station at Wellesley began in May 1901. With the money for the station being fronted by English capitalists, and the work being done by Boston-based contractors. The Wellfleet station was situated on eight acres of land equipped with 10 sets of two poles, each pole stood nearly 100 feet tall and they were set in a semi-circle fashion. The Poles cost $2,900 Or about $101,000 when adjusted for inflation, that was for each one to build. In June 1901, the long-rumored Wireless Station on the Nantucket Lightship was constructed, although this would only be connected to Sankaty Head lighthouse on the island of Nantucket, approximately 48 miles away. Catastrophe came that November though, when the strongest storm in three years roared across Cape Cod. The Marconi station Wellfleet, was completely destroyed, leaving vessels traveling between New York and Europe without the added aid. Ironically, though, it was only when the station was damaged by the storm that the people of Wellfleet discovered that it was owned by Guglielmo Marconi. It had been built in relative secrecy. Despite his great accomplishments in the field, Marconi himself remained reserved, not wanting to seem boastful about how his invention was revolutionizing communication. In December 1901, a wireless station was built at Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland. This allowed Marconi to continue with his experiments with the technology while the Wellfleet station was being rebuilt. Signal Hill was about as close as North America could get to England being 900 miles closer to the Poldhu station than the Wellfleet location. It took more than a full year for the new Wireless Station to be finished in Wellfleet. In December 1902, it was completed with four 250-foot towers on a rectangular base, replacing the original setup. Marconi himself arrived from Sydney, Australia to inspect the station, marking the first time he had ever set foot on Cape Cod. Not long after his arrival on the cape Marconi and his assistant George S camp, got to work on what would be his greatest achievement to that point. The message between the two world leaders was to be the grand reopening of the Marconi Wireless Station in Wellfleet. The Wellfleet station initially had the call letter CC for Cape Cod. This would change to MCC for Marconi, Cape Cod, and finally to WCC when all Eastern stations took the W prefix. As previously stated, the date of January 19 1903, was a landmark day in communication. It was on that date that the first two-way wireless conversation took place between President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward the Seventh. This accomplishment made it impossible for Marconi to remain in the shadows of success any longer though, within a week of the transatlantic conversation, reporters from the leading newspapers and magazines of Boston in New York sent it upon Wellfleet for a chance to find out about the man behind the invention. Marconi had high hopes of securing the rights to wireless communication basically everywhere in the world. He was referred to in some newspapers as a wizard, and his achievements were seen as more impressive by the fact that he was not even 29 years old yet. Just as the fervor around the young inventor reached a fever pitch, Marconi left Cape Cod and returned to England by way of New York. He would return often to Cape Cod however, Marconi his goal of commercializing wireless communication came true in September 1907. The messages were sent at a rate of 20 words per minute, with the cost ranging from 10 cents a word for regular messages, or $3.15 when adjusted for inflation, and five cents a word for press-related messages, or about $1.58 when adjusted for inflation. In 1909, Marconi received the Nobel Prize for Physics sharing the prize with fellow wireless communication pioneer German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun, a second wireless station was built by Marconi in Chatham overlooking Ryders Cove in 1914. This site was chosen for its relative isolation and was built for a total cost of $300,000 or about $8.9 million today. In 1920, that station became part of the Radio Corporation of America or RCA. It inherited the WCC call letters and became the busiest Ship to Shore station during much of the 20th century. When World War One came knocking for America, the United States Navy took possession of the Wellfleet station, as well as the Chatham site. In April 1917. The Wellfleet site fell under the command of JW Mullins, the chief electrician of the Navy. This proved to be the beginning of the end for the Wireless Station on the Outer Cape. After the war ended, the station closed and the writing was on the wall as far as nature went as well. The bluffs along the Outer Cape have been ravaged by erosion for countless decades. Even a century ago, the cliffs had rapidly eroded to the point that the concrete bases closest to them were already being compromised before the station's official closing. Despite rumors of the station, possibly reopening late in 1919, nothing came to fruition. The closure of the Wellfleet Marconi station was a mixed blessing for the residents of the town. They were not completely upset with his demise, because while in operation, the sparking of 30,000 Watts supplied by the three-foot rotor could be heard up to four miles away. Guglielmo Marconi continued his research and experiments with wireless technology throughout the remainder of his life. Some later achievements included a mean system for long-distance communication experimentation with microwaves and the principles for developing radar. He received numerous honorary degrees and awards during his lifetime. After a few years of declining health, Marconi died in Rome, Italy, after a series of heart attacks on July 20 1937, at the age of 63. His Wellfleet Wireless Station site would be wiped off the map entirely over time. It was dismantled in 1920. Between 1902 and 1972, the bluff in front of the station eroded 170 feet. Two of the concrete bases for the towers eventually fell to the sea. Camp Wellfleet was constructed on the grounds in 1942 and remained there until 1961 When it was deemed to be unnecessary, and eventually, it became part of the brand-new Cape Cod National Seashore. In 1953. A plaque commemorating the conversation between Roosevelt and King Edward in 1903 was placed at the site. A shelter was constructed in 1974. Housing a scale model replica of the wireless site along with a bronze bust of Guglielmo Marconi, and the beach below the cliffs was named Marconi Beach for the inventor. In a final piece of irony, the eroding cliffs claimed that replica of the station as well. In July 2013, the replica and bust were removed and the shelter was demolished. Incredibly only a short time before this, a pair of the original concrete bases were exposed at the beach below. Sadly, today, the only remains of the original Marconi Wireless Station are bits of wood and brick gathered neatly in an area near the eroding cliffs. But someday I'm sure those will have to be removed as well. The Marconi site and what it represents as far as communication is one of Cape Cod's biggest claims to fame but sadly with the shoreline change and eroding cliffs, all that's going to be the left of it soon is just old photos and memories.
Road Trip: Rutland, VT
Well, look at that road trip time again, fall is just about upon us. The weather's about to get cooler and crisp as the weeks and months go on. The leaves are about to change and it'll be time to do a different type of road trip of fall foliage road trip. These are some of my favorite road trips. And although this state is known as the Green Mountain State, I chose it for this week's road trip, because it's an amazing place to see the beautiful colors of fall foliage. So let's take a road trip to the small town of Rutland, Vermont, small town is all relative. As of 2020, the population of Rutland was just over 15,800. So to you, that could be a small town, it could be a big city compared to some of the small towns in this country. What's great about Rutland, well one of the things that's great about it is where it's located. It's about 65 miles north of the Massachusetts border, it's 35 miles west of the New Hampshire border, and about 20 miles east of the New York border, meaning it's kind of centrally located, especially if you live in central New England and that area. For me from Cape Cod, it's closer to a four and a half hour drive, which makes it a bit of a hike. But that's what hotels are for. And that's why you spend the night there. I would think first and foremost, if you're going to Rutland, you would almost have to go out of your way not to visit the Green Mountain National Forest. Seriously, it's about 400,000 acres. Naturally, it's beautiful. In the fall, when the colors change. There's untold miles of proper hiking trails, where you can go and wander off and have an adventure in the woods. That type of thing appeals to me. There's tons of wildlife out there, some of it is less threatening and intimidating, like beavers, deer, and turkeys. But the further up north you go, and that's the same for New Hampshire and Maine as well. There are animals that are more dangerous. I mean, they got coyotes, we have them on Cape Cod. But they also have moose and black bears. So you obviously if you're going hiking in the Green Mountain National Forest, just be aware of where you are, I might recommend staying on the actual trails, don't go too off the beaten path and check it out. You never know when you might run into a bear. There are so many places to park and go into the forest. So I typically will give you an address of a place but this is a little bit harder. So it's almost fall, you go up there for fall foliage, but in a few months, it's going to be winter and you're going to be going up there to ski just north and east of Rutland. You've got two major mountains to go skiing at Pico Mountain which is in mendon. And obviously the famous Killington visit pico mountain.com, to get a better idea of what they offer. They're also at 73 Alpine Drive in Mendon, Vermont. But they're not open now. But if you go up there, you can see them out and it's still there even when there's no snow. And you can also visit killington.com If that's your preferred ski location. If you don't go up to Rutland to ski. There's plenty more to do like visiting the Paramount Theatre. It's at 30 Center Street. Also known as the Playhouse. This is kind of the center of arts and culture in Rutland. It's got a beautiful ambiance all decked out in red. There's lots of music and comedy. And it goes all the way back to when it was first opened in 1914. So it's history as well. So it kind of checks all the boxes. Before it gets too deep into winter. If you go up and visit Rutland, you can just walk around downtown. There's a lot of simple pleasures in Rutland, beautifully painted murals, and a sculpture trail that showcases a lot of historical figures that were from Rutland. But of course, on top of history and culture, there is shopping and dining. They are home to the state's largest Farmers Market, which is the downtown Rutland summer market. It's open from mid May to Halloween. So you've still got plenty of time to get up there and check it out if you're listening to this when the podcast first comes out, otherwise, you gotta wait till spring. But honestly, few things are better than a northern New England farmers market in the late summer, or early fall. If you can't find a little bit of fun in doing that going there seeing what they've got to offer, then you might just not like road trips. Of course, I'm also biased. There are places for education for kids at the Wonderfeet Kids Museum at 11 Center Street, or wonder feet, kids museum.org. Naturally, if you've gone up to Rutland, you've either gone skiing, or maybe checked out the Farmers Market leaf peeping walking around downtown, you're going to build up an appetite. And there are a lot of great places to go in town. But topping it all might be Roots the restaurant at 55, Washington Street, and roots rutland.com. It's somewhat classic American food, but they heavily promote and rely on local ingredients. And typically organic ingredients at that. It's a part of the Center Street marketplace Park Across from city hall. So it's a part of the downtown area so you can walk and explore. And then go and check out Roots. Like I said, at the top Rutland is a bit of a hike for me four and a half hour drive, maybe a little less if I really speed. So when I get up there, I look to stay overnight, I'm not going to just do a day trip that is a lot of miles. And you can check out Airbnb, there's a lot of places to stay highly reputable ones. But they also have typical hotels and motels, Best Western Hampton Inn. So it all depends on what you're looking for. Visit downtown rutland.com This website has everything you could possibly want to know about the town, where to eat, where to stay, but also the culture and arts, the history, the shopping, it's kind of a one stop for someone that's never been there that kind of wants a little bit of guidance on what they should do and see. But as I say, with all of these road trips, sometimes it's best to go without a plan and just kind of explore. That's how I usually find things that I didn't even know I needed to see and know about. Rutland has that small town feel in places despite being part of the Green Mountains. And it has some of the wide open spaces that are so beloved in northern New England specifically. And there are all these charming small towns around it. I love bringing up towns like this for the road trip because it's an excuse to tell you to go visit Vermont in general New Hampshire or Maine or anywhere in New England. And with well over 1500 cities and towns in New England in total. There are so many places to go. Maybe I'll get to every single one. And in this podcast, maybe I won't. But I'll keep bringing them to you. And hopefully give you a reason to go and check out all the beautiful scenery right in our own backyard, especially if you live in New England and the area close by.
This Week In History
This week in history, we are going back 174 years ago to September 13 1848. And the unbelievable but true story of Phineas Gage, the most famous neuroscience patient ever. When choosing things for the this week in history segment, I have a few websites that I scour to find something interesting from this week to share with you. And I know most of them this week in the story of Phineas Gage I had never heard of and it's unbelievable. The gist of the story is that on September 13 1848, Phineas Gage was 25. At the time he was the foreman of a crew cutting a railroad bed in the town of Cavendish, Vermont. As he was using a tamping iron to pack explosive powder into a hole the powder detonated and that tamping iron, which was 43 inches long, an inch and a quarter in diameter, and weighed over 13 pounds. Shot skyward, penetrated gauge his left cheek, went right into his brain, and exited through his skull, landing several dozen feet away. Unbelievably, not only did it not kill Gage, but they think he may not have even lost consciousness. He was blinded in his left eye, but his mind was still sharp. When he went to the doctor that same day, he said to the doctor here is business enough for you As he walked in with a hole in his head. Gage became a bit of a celebrity, even going on tours to show off his wound and the iron rod. What made him a famous neuroscience patient was the fact that the wound the injury to his brain basically changed his personality. observations were made by a doctor John Martin Harlow, who treated him for months afterward. And people that knew him well. Gage knew him well and said that he was no longer himself and that the balance between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seemed gone. He had been a model Foreman and the railroad, they had to let him go, he had to go work at a stable in New Hampshire and he seemed to lack empathy for people and he would just swear and say whatever came to his mind, no filter anymore. His case was the first to connect brain trauma and personality change. Unbelievably, a couple Jack and Beverly Wilgus, who collected vintage photographs came across a photo of Phineas Gage, posing with the iron rod. There's no way to tell exactly when it was from, but he died. Phineas Gage died in May 1860, at the age of 36, after a series of seizures, but the fact that he had a heavy iron rod shoot through his face, and he lived 12 years after is unbelievable. If you want to read more about it, I will put a link up to the Smithsonian Magazine article that I read for this segment, so you can read it for yourself. But the story of Phineas Gage and the iron rod took place 174 years ago this week in history. And now it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're not going to go as far back as Phineas Gage, but we're going to go back 34 years ago, September 15 1988. So let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was Sweet Child of Mine by Guns N Roses. This was off of their debut album Appetite for Destruction, of which I had the cassette when I was 10 years old. This was the third single off of that album and was the first and only number-one song by Guns and Roses. Despite not having another number-one song Appetite for Destruction became one of the top-selling albums in US history. As of right now, it's sold more than 30 million copies, which puts it I believe in the top 10 But it really put Guns n Roses on the map the song. The number one movie was A Fish Called Wanda. This is a British comedy, starring John Cleese, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, and Jamie Lee Curtis. And it's four very different jewel feeds that all work together on a heist but then all tried to double cross each other after it had a budget of seven and a half million dollars and made just over $188 million dollars at the box office, which would be just over $470 million when adjusted for inflation. The movie is 96% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for three Academy Awards, with Kevin Kline winning for Best Supporting Actor. The number one TV show was a different world. This originally started as a spin-off from The Cosby Show with Lisa Bonet as Denise Huxtable going to college. However, Bonet left after the first season so then it switched to mainly the exploits of Dwayne Wayne and Whitley, Kadeem, Hardison and Jasmine guy, and just college life in general. It was on for six seasons, and 144 Total episodes between 1987 and 1993. And the show was a massive hit. It was in the top five for ratings in each of its first four seasons. And if you were around back then September 15 1988, you had a previous engagement, you couldn't be home to watch a different world. Luckily for you, there was a thing called a VCR. So you could get yourself a blank tape and get yourself a classic VCR by RCA. Throw the tape in get the channel on set the timer so that it'll start recording at 8:30pm on a Thursday, and you could get this RCA VCR with a one-year warranty for $299 or right around $750 when adjusted for inflation, and then you just got to label the tape and make sure nobody records over it or make sure that tape does doesn't get stuck in the teeth of the VCR and pulled out. But thankfully, it's a problem that we don't have to have anymore. And that's going to wrap up this week in history, it's going to wrap up another time capsule. But now it's time for a new top five with some laughs as we look at some of the worst As Seen on TV products ever put out there. Let's see how many of these you've heard of and hopefully never bought yourself.
Top 5: Worst As Seen On TV Products
Way back in episode 43, I did a top five that were the funniest As Seen on TV products. With this week's top five being the worst, there is a chance that there could have been some kind of crossover as far as products go, I made it a point to not have the same ones on either list. But I'm not gonna lie, worst and funniest can be interchangeable. For the funniest, I went for just the things that looked the stupidest. For this list the worst, I went and looked at ratings from people who had bought the product. However it was difficult to kind of get an overall rating for each of these products. So as with most of these lists is not going to be in any particular order. And I'm pretty sure you will have at least heard of some of these products if you have not bought them yourselves. And if you bought them I feel bad for you. Let's get into the honorable mentions first though, to kind of give you an idea of what I was looking at. And I'm just going to give you the name you can look them up to see what I'm talking about as far as these products go. But I'm only going to spend a minute here so the honorable mentions for the worst As Seen on TV products include the Pocket Hose, the extractor, Tater Mits, the Hawaiian Chair, and Listen Up. All of these honorable mentions in the top five just had these abysmal ratings and talked about how garbage the products were. But like I said, they're not in any particular order. So let's dive right into the top five. Number one is sauna pants. These are I guess a classic as far as As Seen on TV products go. You may even see in places like Walmart, the sauna suit, or you're basically wearing this suit of whatever material it is to just make you sweat underneath it like it's going to burn fat. The sauna pants are the same idea just a pair of shorts that you wear to make your crotch and ass just sweat like that's really what you need to lose weight. The idea of a sauna, allowing you to sweat and get rid of a lot of toxins in the body is a good idea. Wearing clothes that make you sweat is not quite the same thing. And thus the sauna pants have been littered with horrible reviews for God. I mean, the sauna suit goes back to the 70s. But sauna pants are just as bad terrible ratings, they come highly not recommended. Number two is Zoomies these are not the things that dogs get when they get excited and run around the house. These are a pair of very cheap binocular glasses. You can still get these on Amazon I just saw them their hands free binocular glasses, where there's a little lever on the side of one of the lenses that you can flick and it zooms in tighter. The product says it gets four times zoom with these binocular glasses, but a lot of the reviews say that it becomes very pixelated and blurry when you zoom in. I even saw one review that said that it was so dangerous because they figured their kid might get them and look into the sun with them and zoom in and go blind. But this was another one just littered with poor reviews for the product being poorly constructed with blurry zoom and just not worth the money. Number three is Cami Secret. I don't even know where to start with this one. To sum it up, it's a piece of fabric that you attach to your shirt if you're a woman to cover up your cleavage. If you haven't seen the ads look for the ads It's so stupid. It's basically like if you want to wear revealing clothes but don't want to be revealing you put this piece of fabric you just pin to your clothes to cover up so why not just wear a regular shirt then if you're worried about it, you can go on Amazon if you are right now and get a pack of three different colors to match any outfit. But this is just a product that is just pointless. What is the point of this? It's like it's stupid as having fake sleeves when you're wearing a tank top to give you the appearance of wearing a regular shirt. It's like why not just wear a regular shirt then? I just shake my head at a lot of these. Number four is the Uroclub. This is another one. I don't know what the hell. If you've never heard of this, it's basically a golf club that's hollowed out. So if you're on the golf course and you can't find a bathroom, you can unscrew the top and pee into your golf club. I mean, it's disgusting and it comes with a towel or something that you put over your hands so that no one can see what you're doing. But really what's worse, running off into the woods to hide and go pee or standing in the middle of the fairway just point and shoot into a hollow golf club. This was on the show Shark Tank and it was created by a urologist. But it's basically seen as a gag gift. I don't know if the urologist was serious. Maybe they weren't but still, the idea of a hollowed-out golf club to pee in while you're out playing the game is just the worst. And finally, number five speaking of the worst is the Skinny's arm lifts. If you haven't seen this, you should go and look it up and look at the pictures. Basically, it's tape for your arms. If you have flabby arms, you tape the flab up so that you it doesn't look like you have fat arms anymore. This is another like the Uroclub like Is this a joke or is this real? Someone is supposed to be self-conscious of their loose skin on their arms and they're gonna buy tape and tape it up and then hide it under a shirt so that it looks like you don't have flabby arms. These are as bad as the really tight compression shirts that are supposed to give the illusion of having a skinnier waist. Rather than just doing the exercise to get the skinny or waist. You spend your money on a useless product. It's just unbelievable. And they've probably made money off of all these products, where then you sit back and wonder what product you could think of that's totally stupid and useless but people might end up buying but that's the top five Please tell me you don't have any of these products, sauna pants, zoomies CAMI secret, the Euro club or skinnies arm lifts. Did I miss any of the worst As Seen on TV products? Because I'll definitely come back and do a second countdown at some point on the podcast. But I've done the funniest I've now done the worst at some point I will do the best and yes, I think there are some actual good As Seen on TV products, I will find them at some point.
Video Arcade Hey Day
In current days, access to video games has never been easier. You can pull up games on your smartphone, on your laptop, or any of the consoles made by Nintendo, Xbox, Sony, PlayStation, etc., and easy access to video games has been commonplace for 30 years or more. But there was a time way back in the day when that wasn't the case. For the majority of kids of the 1970s and 80s. If you wanted to play video games, you had to go to a separate building, get a whole bunch of quarters, wait in line behind your favorite machine, and pay the price. So let's look back at the golden age of the video arcade right now. video arcades and the video arcade games themselves go back about 50 years to the creation of the first stand-up arcade game known as Computer Space in 1971. It was created by Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell would go on to create Atari later on in the same decade. That game was kind of a failure, even though it was in the movie Soylent Green, which was supposed to be in the future. And then in 1972, came Pong, which was the legendary table tennis game. When you look back at it now it doesn't look legendary, but at the time, the idea of being able to play a game like that was unbelievable. Nolan Bushnell created the Atari VCS video computer system in 1977. And this was a way to get a lot of games that would go on to become arcade favorites at home for people. But getting the Atari was not the same as today with access to games. So if you wanted to play them, there was a place called the video arcade. Now video arcades are still around today. Standalone ones don't exist as much as they used to you'll typically find an arcade as a part of a bowling alley. Sometimes restaurants I know in Hyannis on Cape Cod, there's a place called Flashbacks and it's an arcade bar restaurant. But back in the late 70s, and early 80s video arcades were standalone, I guess you could call them gaming centers too because it wasn't all just computer games. You'd have the skee ball or the basketball hoops. But these upright games that were six feet or so tall, like big cabinets with screens, were all lined up on the walls, sometimes clustered in the middle of the arcade room itself. And you walk into the video arcade and it's just a wall of different sounds and sound effects and the dropping of quarters. There was a time in the 80s when this was the place to be. You either go to the video arcade or you go to the mall. That golden age of video arcades late 70s through the early to mid 80s. Included games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man. This was when video arcades were as common as convenience stores in 1982. There were 24,000 standalone arcades 400,000 smaller street arcades they're called and more than 1.5 million video arcade game consoles sold in America. These arcade consoles cost as much as $3,000 Each in 1982, or just over $9,200 when adjusted for inflation. I remember being amazed when my friend Matt had RBI Baseball in an actual cabinet video game in his bedroom. I have no idea how much his parents paid for that. But he and I played it a lot when I was over there. The popularity and the money earned by video arcades kept going up in the early 80s. In 1981, the video arcade industry grossed more than $5 billion. My experience in arcades came after the video game crash of 1983, which almost ended the industry. But Nintendo saved it with Super Mario Brothers. In arcades like I said it wasn't only the stand-up cabinet games there were in the gaming centers, you'd have the basketball, the skee ball, regular pinball machines, the air hockey tables, maybe one of those punching bags that could demonstrate your strength. I just remember going in there with a few dollars going to the change machine where you have to slide your dollar in and it would shoot out the four quarters. I enjoyed fighting games like Street Fighter or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fighter. Then there were the really popular ones, like the driving games that the cabinet itself or the game was shaped like a car and you got into it. So you were totally immersed in this game. The problem was that the arcade owners knew how much kids liked it, so it would cost more. And that was the big issue for me if you're playing a game and you get to a certain level, but then you die. Putting in a second quarter was like hitting the save on a console now. And you'd get only so far and then you'd run out of quarters and just be so mad. slam your hand on the console hit the side of the cabinet and hope that nobody that was there heard you. Some of these video arcades had little snack bar areas to fleece teenagers out of more money. Growing up though I remember there being video consoles inside convenience stores, sub shops, and pizza places, because why not if you're paying for lunch while you're waiting for it pay to play video games too. There was a place down the street from me Harry sub shop. They had a Tetris machine in there, and I had the high score on that for a long time. But the problem was Harry's closed down and Tetris was gone. I was like George Costanza on Seinfeld with Frogger, wanting to save the machine with his high score. But as time went on, there was a shift where consoles at home Nintendo, Sega, it was easier to just buy the machine and buy the game rather than going to an arcade. By the late 80s, the golden age of the video arcade was already over. They still had the classics. Like I said Street Fighter I loved Mortal Kombat, there was always a line to play the bloodiest game ever at the time. Now, like I said, they're usually video arcades that are attached to something else, a part of a larger entertainment complex. Some of them might have newer games but a lot of them have the classics like Donkey Kong, Qbert, Pac-Man, Pole Position, Galaxian, Galaga, asteroids, one others, what am I forgetting out there? I mentioned Frogger, BurgerTime, Dig Dug, Centipede, and Spy Hunter, there are so many I could just name them all off. And eventually, I'll hit one that you remember playing at the arcade. The king of arcade games was Space Invaders which sold more than 750,000 of those cabinet games. I was shocked that it was almost double Pac-Man, which was at 400,000. But like I said, by the early 90s, the arcade sensation was kind of over. I think Street Fighter II was like the last arcade hit. After that, most of the games that you would play in arcades ended up being released on home consoles as well. Granted, you couldn't play 10 Different arcade games in one sitting, but you could get a favorite game and play the hell out of it. I didn't live at the arcade like a lot of kids I knew did. But I had plenty of time in the 80s riding to the arcade on my bike or getting a ride and getting dropped off while the family did something else. I saved up quarters as best I could and figured out how many games I could play. Those single-quarter games were the best but like I said, as it got on. And the games were two or three quarters just to play once. It's like oh man it's really cutting into your playing time. But those of you listening, who used to go to the arcade a lot late 70s through the early 90s. What were your favorite games? And what was the weirdest place that you saw that had a video arcade game? As I said, convenience stores, and some quick restaurants. It's definitely another one of those things that has from a bygone era where kids these days that just have games on their phones or all these different consoles. The idea of leaving the house and going to a separate building to play those games is a foreign concept. But back in the day back in the mid 80s late 80s Getting on your bike and going to an arcade was a huge bonus. God help you if you had a video arcade inside the mall, then it was a double whammy. Go and play all the games and blow all your money and then sit and hang out like a mall rat for the rest of the night. Who would have ever thought I'd be wistfully looking back at that bygone era? But here we are.
Closing
That'll wrap up episode 85 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Thank you so much to everyone who's been tuning in. I say it all the time because I really appreciate all of you that check out the podcast whether you've listened to every episode or you come in and out here and there. Luckily, these are pretty much evergreen so if you miss episodes if you've missed 50 episodes, you can listen to them at any time. My intros and outros may be a little more dated towards when I record but the meat of the podcast is pretty much evergreen. You can find me all over social media, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, the in my Footsteps podcast blog, my website Christopher setterlund.com, created and updated run by my oldest friend Barry Menard, who I had a blast last week showing up at his yard sale. I drove an hour and a half and showed up at his driveway and he and his wife and son were sitting in the driveway and I showed up and said Is it too late for the yard sale, which pretty much shocked the hell out of them. But it was a super fun time and a super fun visit and I have to do more. Next week is going to be episode 86 of the podcast. It's going to be the monthly bonus episode where I dive deeper into one topic kind of stretch it out a little. And this episode is going to be something a little bit different. I'm going to talk about that incident from my high school. It's a subject I never even thought about talking about until I had this platform here to share it. Those of you who went to DY High School will know that incident, those who don't I will go into detail as best I can without naming names and shaming people. But without leaving it all as a tease. There was a teacher that got in trouble for something and for some time. My little High School on Cape Cod was national news, and I will talk all about it next week on episode 86 Like I say the end of all these episodes recently go and check out Kiwis Kustoms both spelled with Ks at etsy.com Homemade handcrafted items. Dog and Cat sweaters fairy hats, Bacalavas. There's jewelry, Kaleigh Marks has been honing her craft and sharpening her skills, she's got a lot of great stuff. It costs nothing to look. And if you see something that looks kind of like something you might want, she takes requests if it's something that's in her repertoire, holidays are coming up. These are perfect gifts, go and check it out. There's a link in the description of the podcast. And like I said, it costs nothing to look and you'll be happy that you did. Kiwis Kustoms, both spelled with Ks at etsy.com. You know, I mentioned a minute ago about having to do these visits with old friends like Barry and his family. Because time flies and you don't get time back. I want to take a moment to send my heartfelt condolences to the family of an old friend of mine from high school, a good old friend, Pete Machon. He was a fun, kind, gentle soul. Some of that always had a smile that you would gravitate towards if you knew him. Hell, the first concert I ever went to AC/DC, he was there part of our crew, part of my clique, the people I gravitated towards, a lot of them have since moved away. Some of them are still around, but they have family. So it's harder to get connected with them. But a lot of that's on me, where you think you have the time. And then you suddenly find out that your old friend that I had just been thinking about Pete, a week or so before I heard, but I didn't reach out. And he passed away, suddenly. I don't know what happened. And to me, the main thing is that he has gone way too young. And I'm saying if you're thinking of an old friend, if you're thinking of family that you haven't been in touch with, for a while, just reach out. Because I was thinking about Pete, I looked at our mutual posts on Facebook. But I didn't take the time to reach out and just say hey, how are you doing? And now I can never do that. You know, I was digitizing. This past week, my high school graduation, I was lucky enough. I had my video camera and filmed my graduation in 96. And I was actually really sad to see so many people that are no longer with us. And I'm not that old. But to see, half a dozen or more people that I knew in high school that are gone was just sobering for as many smiles at people that I remember that are still around there was just sadness. So please reach out to those that matter those who you haven't talked to, because you never know. When I save that, at the end of these podcasts you never know what tomorrow brings. Here's another living proof. Rest in peace to my friend Pete. Thanks for being a good friend, man. Thank you. And thank you to everyone who tunes in. Thank you to everyone who shares this podcast. And thank you to everyone who does all they can to make the world a better place. Even if I've never met you. Thank you. And I'll be back next week for episode 86 This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I have been Christopher Setterlund I will talk to you all again