Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's Radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much to call. I will get everybody
Speaker 2: to eleven fifty eight so I can get you, you know,
Speaker 2: with two minutes to Saturday morning. Just stick with me
Speaker 2: for the next four hours. We have an interesting program
Speaker 2: coming up before we start tonight. Just the two minor
Speaker 2: matters that I would like, well, they're not minor matters,
Speaker 2: are major matters. First of all, I want to send
Speaker 2: a big happy birthday wish out to a young man
Speaker 2: by the name of Bill Dougherty. Bill Dougherty, who is
Speaker 2: married to his lovely wife Elaine. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: tell you how old Bill is. He's actually celebrating his
Speaker 2: twenty eighth birthday tonight. That is the spirit of this guy.
Speaker 2: He's a great friend. I saw a picture of him
Speaker 2: with his granddaughter and it looks like there's a Holy
Speaker 2: Cross celebration going on in the Doughty household. And I
Speaker 2: think it has to do with maybe that young hockey
Speaker 2: player has committed to play college hockey. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot going on in the Doughty household tonight. And I
Speaker 2: suspect there's a purple and white collars are abounding on
Speaker 2: maybe I have it backwards. I'm not sure. Can you.
Speaker 2: Can you have a granddaughter at the age of twenty eight?
Speaker 2: Probably not Probably he may be a little older that,
Speaker 2: but he's in spirit. He's twenty eight. So Bill Dougherty,
Speaker 2: congratulations to you and Elaine. You're a saint putting up
Speaker 2: with him. There's no doubt about that. At least that's
Speaker 2: what I'm told. Anyway, even on Bill's birthday, Elaine, we
Speaker 2: got to give you a shout out. Okay, simple as that.
Speaker 2: I also want to congratulate our winner of the Unfortunately
Speaker 2: Paul from South Boston never got in touch with us,
Speaker 2: don't know why. But our runner up and now is
Speaker 2: the winner of the beautiful coat bag that our friends
Speaker 2: at College Hyper making available. Go to Nightside and Demand
Speaker 2: and check out Nightside and Demand. That's for our that's
Speaker 2: our podcast. To Nightside Gear, Nightside gearollwornword dot com and
Speaker 2: check out our t shirts and our Hooded sweatshirts and
Speaker 2: just an array of holiday gifts, Christmas gifts, and Pelvis
Speaker 2: Presley as a winner. Believe it or not, I talked
Speaker 2: with Pelvis tonight and that is his actual name. His
Speaker 2: mother must have been a big Elvis Presley fan. Pelvis
Speaker 2: Presley of Middleton has won the first tote bag because
Speaker 2: he was very close. He ped it. He predicted that
Speaker 2: Trump would win with three hundred and seven electoral votes.
Speaker 2: He was only five away. Because we haven't heard from
Speaker 2: Paul Pelvis that tote bag from our friends at college,
Speaker 2: Hype is on the way. Now. We have a very
Speaker 2: busy show tonight and we have four really interesting topics
Speaker 2: here in the eight o'clock hour. No phone calls this hour.
Speaker 2: I'm delighted to introduce to all of you Alex London,
Speaker 2: who was a librarian. It was Massachusetts, a beautiful community,
Speaker 2: and there was a story that we saw in the
Speaker 2: Worcester Telegram recently about Worcester Public Library was reunited with
Speaker 2: an o overdue book of fifty one years. Alex, this
Speaker 2: is a great story. Tell us about this. You are
Speaker 2: a genealogy and local history librarian with the Worcester Public Library.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us. This is a great What was
Speaker 2: the book that was kept by someone or someone's family
Speaker 2: for fifty one years was the title of the book.
Speaker 3: Called the Early Works of Aubrey Beardsley, and it was
Speaker 3: published in eighteen ninety nine. So quite an old book.
Speaker 2: We dropped the first couple of seconds the early Works
Speaker 2: of Aubrey Beardsley exactly. I must tell you, I don't
Speaker 2: think I've read any of the early works or the
Speaker 2: late works of Aubrey Bearsley. Sounds with a name like that,
Speaker 2: they could be sort of a relief picture for the California,
Speaker 2: for the Los Angeles Angels. Daty myself.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I tell you I wasn't familiar with
Speaker 3: Aubrey Beardsley either. But it actually it turns out that
Speaker 3: he wasn't a writer, but he was in fact an artist.
Speaker 3: So it was really kind of a publication which had
Speaker 3: a lot of his early drawings. Interestingly enough, apparently he
Speaker 3: did a lot of work on book illustrations and drawing
Speaker 3: the covers book, so that was that was pretty fitting,
Speaker 3: but really just a collection of his artwork.
Speaker 2: So how did the book show up? I mean, does
Speaker 2: someone walk in and say, gee, I've had this book
Speaker 2: for fifty one years. I'm sure that wasn't what happened.
Speaker 2: And someone said, okay, let's see ten cents a year
Speaker 2: you owe us whatever with compounded interest, who brought it
Speaker 2: in and what were the circumstances well, you.
Speaker 3: Know, it's interesting. Somebody actually brought it into the Cambridge
Speaker 3: Public Library. They had, according to the librarians and Cambridge,
Speaker 3: they had rescued it from being thrown out. I don't
Speaker 3: know if that means that maybe you know, they're cleaning
Speaker 3: out someone's attic and found it, or you know, they
Speaker 3: found it on sort of a used book sale, but
Speaker 3: they noticed that it had Worcester Public Library markings on it,
Speaker 3: so they brought it into into Cambridge, which you know,
Speaker 3: I guess was the closest library to them. And the
Speaker 3: Cambridge Library reached out to us and said, you know, hey,
Speaker 3: we have a book with the due date slip from
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three. Would you be interested in having it back?
Speaker 3: And sure enough we were, Wow.
Speaker 2: That's an amazing story. Obviously it's not someone I was
Speaker 2: joking when I asked the question. It's not someone who
Speaker 2: would have held onto the book. You just forgot to
Speaker 2: bring it back to the library. But yes, you hear
Speaker 2: these stories every once in a while. Has anyone figured
Speaker 2: out what is the longest book that was overdue? I mean,
Speaker 2: this has to be pretty close to a record, if
Speaker 2: not an actual record. I mean we've heard about books
Speaker 2: twenty years, thirty years, but this is fifty one years.
Speaker 2: And any idea what the longest overdue book, the latest
Speaker 2: or the most tardy overdue book in the history of
Speaker 2: any library in America? Is there? I assume someone has
Speaker 2: that record somewhere. I don't know if you do.
Speaker 3: I assume that someone does. You know, I don't know
Speaker 3: necessarily if it's us. You do hear stories about this
Speaker 3: pop up every every once in a while, But certainly,
Speaker 3: at least for our library, this is the oldest, the
Speaker 3: oldest overdue book that we've ever had come back to us.
Speaker 3: But if it's not a record for the United States,
Speaker 3: I'd imagine it has to be at least up there.
Speaker 2: It has to be in the top ten. There's no
Speaker 2: doubt about that. Now. Have you actually received the book
Speaker 2: already from from Cambridge?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, yes, we have it back. It's currently currently
Speaker 3: on my desk.
Speaker 2: And is it available for lending or is it are
Speaker 2: you going to keep it out of circulation for a while?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's it's funny, it's actually no longer
Speaker 3: in our library catalog because it's been out of the
Speaker 3: library for so for so long that you know, a
Speaker 3: while back in the nineties, we switched over from the
Speaker 3: old you know, card catalog drawers if you if you
Speaker 3: remember that, oh, well, electronic cataloging. But you know, since
Speaker 3: the book wasn't in the library, it was actually never
Speaker 3: added to our electronic catalog. But to answer your question,
Speaker 3: we are actually going to have it re cataloged and
Speaker 3: make it, uh, you know, make it available on the shelves.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 3: What we are going to do, given the fact that
Speaker 3: the book is so old and the fact that it
Speaker 3: was you know, on the lamb for so long, we
Speaker 3: are going to make it so that it can only
Speaker 3: be used in the library. So unfortunately people won't be
Speaker 3: able to to take it home, but hopefully soon they
Speaker 3: will be able to come in and you know, see
Speaker 3: it if they're like.
Speaker 2: What what condition was it in? Did it did it
Speaker 2: just sit somewhere or was it in rough shape when
Speaker 2: it came in?
Speaker 3: No, it was actually it was actually in great shape.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Some of the pages were a little bit yellowed as
Speaker 3: you as you might expect, but you know, overall it
Speaker 3: was I don't know exactly where it was for over
Speaker 3: fifty years, but it seemed like wherever it was it
Speaker 3: was in a in decent enough condition. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 3: Inside the book there's a little you know, the Worcester
Speaker 3: librarians of the time, they put in a little message
Speaker 3: that says, you know, this book is the property of
Speaker 3: the Worcester Public Library. You know, good care and prompt
Speaker 3: return or the responsibility of each borrower. So so I
Speaker 3: was saying that, you know, they did take quite good
Speaker 3: care of it, but the prompt return they didn't. They
Speaker 3: didn't quite have that down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just that you'd love to know the whole story.
Speaker 2: I mean, and of course it's impossible to figure out.
Speaker 2: But but someone must have taken it out, forgotten about it,
Speaker 2: and somehow, some way it made its way to Cambridge.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a great it is a great story
Speaker 2: and Alex really appreciate, you know, it's funny. So so,
Speaker 2: how how old are the books in your library? Are
Speaker 2: they books to go back to the to the nineteenth century.
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we have, you know, not too many of them,
Speaker 3: but we do have certain books that are from the
Speaker 3: eighteen hundreds, even the seventeen and sixteen hundreds. You know,
Speaker 3: those don't circulate, but we do have we do have
Speaker 3: some very old books.
Speaker 2: Well, when I first started as a TV reporter, I
Speaker 2: am proud to tell you that I was the subject
Speaker 2: of a book that was a fellow out of Vermont
Speaker 2: lived in Moscow, Vermont, and he did a series of
Speaker 2: books called A Day in the Life of and he
Speaker 2: happened to do A Day in the Life of a
Speaker 2: Television Reporter, which was me back in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: And so that book, now, I realize, is pretty darn old,
Speaker 2: but I have a few that I kept there in
Speaker 2: premo condition, which I intend to pass on to my grandchildren.
Speaker 2: You might check it out someday, because I was told
Speaker 2: that that book was published by Little Brown, was a
Speaker 2: hardcover book, a lot of pictures, a lot of stories.
Speaker 2: Who was a children's book, you know, for kids who
Speaker 2: wanted to become TV reporter a journalist. And I'm told
Speaker 2: that that book was literally in every public library in America.
Speaker 2: And while I worked for Channel four many years ago,
Speaker 2: periodically I would get a book sent to me by
Speaker 2: a librarian. I remember one from Saint Joseph's, Missouri, and
Speaker 2: a couple of others. They would send them to me
Speaker 2: and say, we're cleaning our shelves and we thought you
Speaker 2: might like to have this book, so I have a
Speaker 2: few copies of the book. I would bet you you
Speaker 2: have one at your Worcester library, believe it or not.
Speaker 2: A Day in the Library. The television reporter and the
Speaker 2: author was a fellow named Bill Jasperson jasp E R.
Speaker 2: S o h n. Great guy, Yale graduate, wonderful writer,
Speaker 2: did his whole series of books on Day in the
Speaker 2: Life of a Marine Biologist, an entire series going in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties. Actually, so pleasure to always talk about books.
Speaker 2: We recently had Ken gloss on from the Bradle Bookshop.
Speaker 2: We love talking about books here on Nightside, and this
Speaker 2: is a very memorable bookstory. So thanks Alex for joining
Speaker 2: us tonight on a Friday night and telling us a
Speaker 2: story about a long overdue book coming home to Worcester.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: Thanks Thanks Alice, Alex, I very very much appreciate your
Speaker 2: passion for books. When we get back, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk with a local author about his passion for baseball
Speaker 2: stadiu stadiums stadiums, but stadia, I guess with the Latin plural.
Speaker 2: He calls himself the stadium vagabond. His name is Ken Smoller,
Speaker 2: we'll get back dright after this and we'll talk with
Speaker 2: Ken Smoller or Brookline, who has visited I guess over
Speaker 2: three hundred ballparks around the world or stadium stadia around
Speaker 2: the world. Coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk with Ken Small. He's a local author
Speaker 2: of Brookline based Ken. Welcome, a nice side. How are you.
Speaker 4: I'm doing great, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've just released a book about entitled The
Speaker 2: Last Kimiski. Talking about Komisky Park. You actually talked to
Speaker 2: someone who watched Gaylord Perry and Wilbur Will Wilbur Wood
Speaker 2: hook up in an extra inning, zero to zero pitching
Speaker 2: matchup in the early nineteen seventies in a very cold
Speaker 2: Comiskey park. Uh, tell us about what you do? You
Speaker 2: have the stadium vagabond. How many stadiums have you visited
Speaker 2: around the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have photographed over twenty four hundred stadiums around
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I thought it was I thought it
Speaker 2: was three hundred twenty, No hundred.
Speaker 4: That's just baseball's and actually that's that's a little low.
Speaker 4: That's probably about six hundred. I was just doing some
Speaker 4: back of the envelope math as I was waiting. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I started this back in Michigan when I was in
Speaker 4: college photo graphing for the Michigan Daily and continued on
Speaker 4: as a side pursuit ever since then. And you know,
Speaker 4: it's admittedly a little crazy, but everywhere I go, I
Speaker 4: try to at the sporting events where we see the
Speaker 4: stadiums and do a lot of travel for various reasons
Speaker 4: in my life. And as I continued out, and you know,
Speaker 4: it all started back at Commiste Park in Chicago, where
Speaker 4: I grew up. But I've now been in Boston since
Speaker 4: the late nineties.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm going to throw one at you here. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you've done all the ballparks in you know,
Speaker 2: all the minor league ballparks in America. Okay, is there
Speaker 2: any ballpark in America baseball ballpark that you haven't visited.
Speaker 4: There are a few, and some obscure parts of the country.
Speaker 4: I need to get to some in Idaho and a
Speaker 4: few in Louisiana, but I'm up there. I've got about
Speaker 4: maybe four hundred minor league parks most of the college
Speaker 4: ballparks and softball ballparks, so there are definitely some places
Speaker 4: that need to hit both on the ballpark front and
Speaker 4: college football stadium front.
Speaker 2: So, man, this is unbelievable. And okay, how many countries
Speaker 2: have you visited to see stadium or as I'm going
Speaker 2: to pluralize at stadia, I'm up.
Speaker 4: To twenty four right now, so we you know, keep
Speaker 4: adding every year to something new. But off to twenty
Speaker 4: four countries in forty eight states, okay.
Speaker 2: I actually one day while I was in Oslo made
Speaker 2: it a point to get out to Bislet Stadium, which
Speaker 2: was the site of the nineteen fifty two Olympics, which
Speaker 2: was in sort of kind of like a neighborhood. Have
Speaker 2: you been to Oslo and have you seen that the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty the site of the fifty two Olympics? Per chance?
Speaker 4: You know, I need to get up to Scandinavia. That's
Speaker 4: a part of Europe I haven't been to. I did
Speaker 4: recently see a ballpark in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, which
Speaker 4: is kind of unusual seeing ballparks in various parts of the.
Speaker 2: Baseball A baseball park is what, yeah, yeah, which is okay, fine, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's unbelievable. Have you ever had while you were out
Speaker 2: looking at one of these ballparks. I remember when I
Speaker 2: went to Bislet Stadium there was some sort of a
Speaker 2: grounds crew. They kind of looked at me a little weird,
Speaker 2: and I just said, hey, I'm just giving a look,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, sometimes they locked these things up.
Speaker 2: I'm young enough. You're not young enough to remember when
Speaker 2: the Red Sox back in the sixties and seventies used
Speaker 2: to open up the gates at Fenway Park about at
Speaker 2: the top of the seventh inning. So if you were
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood and you just wanted to stroll in.
Speaker 2: This was in the bad old days, when the Red
Speaker 2: Sox weren't drawing big crowds, you could just walk in.
Speaker 2: Has there ever been a ballpark or a stadium that
Speaker 2: you were not allowed to get into?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh yeah I have.
Speaker 4: I've had a lot of problems over the years. I've
Speaker 4: snuck in a few places. I kind of reached the
Speaker 4: age where I no longer will climb fences, had too
Speaker 4: many issues with that happening. But I just recently got
Speaker 4: caught in Antwerp sneaking into it and I got caught,
Speaker 4: and they were not happy with me and kicked me
Speaker 4: out before I got a chance to snap my photo.
Speaker 4: But most people are nice when I tell them what
Speaker 4: I do and I show them my business card. Usually
Speaker 4: I get nice ushers and security guards and other people
Speaker 4: that work at the stagings that let me in, or
Speaker 4: I always find a groundscrew to let me in or
Speaker 4: or some open door to seek in. I kind of
Speaker 4: just act as perfidently as I can and move in,
Speaker 4: and I'm not doing any damage. I'm snapping a photo
Speaker 4: and leaving.
Speaker 2: So so tell us about the book. Kmiski Park. Obviously,
Speaker 2: it was on the South side of Chicago, not a
Speaker 2: particularly good neighborhood and in its later years, but it
Speaker 2: had been the home of the White Sox. It was
Speaker 2: the home of the White Sox during the Black Sox
Speaker 2: scandal of the early twentieth century. And there were guys
Speaker 2: there that you know, Nellie Fox, Louis Aparicio, Billy Pierce,
Speaker 2: Ted Klezuski, Mini Minoso, all these great players who passed through,
Speaker 2: of course, Frank Thomas and later years. What's the most
Speaker 2: important thing to remember about Kimiski Park, other than the
Speaker 2: fact that it was named for the Komiski family, which
Speaker 2: owned the ball team.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think Komiskey Park was like one of those real
Speaker 4: special ballparks that doesn't really get its due. It was
Speaker 4: two years older than Fedway Park, opening up in nineteen ten.
Speaker 4: Zachary Taylor Davis was the architect who went on to
Speaker 4: design Rigley Field, although designed it as a Weigman Park
Speaker 4: for the Federal League Wales. But it was an unusual
Speaker 4: ballpark in that it was based to some degree on
Speaker 4: a cathedral style architect architecture. That was what Davis's expertise
Speaker 4: was in. He also based it to some degree on
Speaker 4: the Roman Coliseum, infusing it with arches all throughout the
Speaker 4: ballpark so that fans could both see out to the neighborhood,
Speaker 4: but the neighborhood could see in with what was going
Speaker 4: on in the ballpark. It was used for baseball, of course,
Speaker 4: but so many other things. The Beatles play there, There
Speaker 4: are prize fights there. The Chicago Cardinals, who are not there. Cardinals, Yeah,
Speaker 4: played there for decades and in fact are the only
Speaker 4: team to have won a championship for a Chicago home
Speaker 4: team in that ballpark. The White Sox the two championships
Speaker 4: they won during that era were on the road, and
Speaker 4: so were the Chicago Negro League of American Giants were
Speaker 4: a real star team at that at that juncture. They
Speaker 4: always won their championships on the road. So the Chicago Cardinals.
Speaker 4: Blake claimed that the only title that occurred in Kamiskey
Speaker 4: Park for the home team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been, sir, I'm guessing nineteen forty
Speaker 2: three or something like that. Forty years of forty seven.
Speaker 2: The Bears were always Wrigley Field. We used to watch
Speaker 2: the Thanksgiving Day games. The only other thing I have
Speaker 2: a buddy of mine who played in the Major League
Speaker 2: twelve years. He was a pitcher, So he hit one
Speaker 2: home run and he hit it in Komiskey Park. He
Speaker 2: hit it off a pitcher. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: remember the name, Joel Horland, but he was a pretty
Speaker 2: hard hitcher out of Texas, and he hit it a
Speaker 2: you know, an August afternoon. It was his one dinger
Speaker 2: during his career, which is one more than most of
Speaker 2: us have. Ken, I love this story. Tell me, how
Speaker 2: can folks get any of your books? Let's let's try
Speaker 2: to sell some books for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Christmas.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's a terrific Christmas present for anyone who likes
Speaker 4: sports or baseball, not just White Sox fans, because I
Speaker 4: tali you a lot of other ballparks. It's available at
Speaker 4: laskmiskeybook dot com or at my website stadium vagabond dot com,
Speaker 4: which also has a lot of different stadium prints from
Speaker 4: from throughout the world that people can get in framed
Speaker 4: form or in puzzles. I just posted some really great
Speaker 4: ones of the old Boston Garden and that's something I'm
Speaker 4: to work on in the future, is a book about
Speaker 4: all the New England stadiu And you know, I've lived
Speaker 4: here now half of my life and it's seen a
Speaker 4: lot of great sporting events here. But you know, my
Speaker 4: first start was over at Mysky Park back in the eighties.
Speaker 2: First first game you went to right, yeah back.
Speaker 4: Listen eineteen seventy seven was my first game, loss against
Speaker 4: the Orioles. A lot more losses than wins.
Speaker 2: I'll bet you who was who was pitching for? Who
Speaker 2: was pitching for the Orioles. I hope Palmer was pitching
Speaker 2: for the Orioles that day.
Speaker 4: It was not, It was not, it was it was Tippy.
Speaker 2: Your little left handed picture sure who was pitching for
Speaker 2: the White Sox.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't remember that. I don't about six years
Speaker 4: old at the time.
Speaker 2: But that's great, it's great.
Speaker 4: You know there's some definitely connections to Boston with with
Speaker 4: Comisky black Sack scandal was hatched and near Square.
Speaker 2: More Square Hotel. Absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, you know what, let's uh,
Speaker 2: let's do an hour some night in early December. Have
Speaker 2: your pr person I think it's Sharon, Uh, have her
Speaker 2: get in touch with my producer. I have my producer
Speaker 2: get in touch with you. Let's do an hour some
Speaker 2: Thursday Friday night, either at ten or eleven. And let's
Speaker 2: let's get get some books sold for you across the country.
Speaker 4: Okay, sounds terrific.
Speaker 2: Susby can look forward to it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I love I love sports. Uh, and we'll we'll have
Speaker 2: the hour will fly by, I promise again. The website
Speaker 2: stadium vagabond dot com or last kamiskibook dot com.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 2: Thanks again, Thank you, Ken, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Take care.
Speaker 2: All right, we get back. We're going to talk about
Speaker 2: well a more serious topic. Full House actor David Coolier
Speaker 2: diagnosed with stage three non Hodgkin lymphoma. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk with doctor Jeremy Jeremy Abramson, director of the lymphoma
Speaker 2: program at mass General Hospital Cancer Center, right after this break,
Speaker 2: after the news at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: It's Night's Eye with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right. By the way, I was mistaken the fifty
Speaker 2: two Olympics were actually in Helsinki. For some reason, I
Speaker 2: thought that they were in Oslo. And when I make
Speaker 2: a mistake, I tried to correct it. The fifty two Olympics.
Speaker 2: We're in neighboring, actually not neighboring because because Finland is
Speaker 2: on the other side of Sweden, but certainly in Scandinavia.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I've always thought that I had visited the
Speaker 2: sight of the fifty two Olympics when I looked at
Speaker 2: that stadium in Ostlo, Bislett Stadium. Anyway, let us move on.
Speaker 2: Now that I have made my apology, I apologize for that.
Speaker 2: I'm not often wrong on sports, although occasionally. So here
Speaker 2: we go. I'm delighted to welcome doctor Jeremy Abramson. He's
Speaker 2: the director of the lymphoma program at Mass General Hospital
Speaker 2: Cancer Center, and the words no one wants to hear
Speaker 2: are a stage three non Hodgkin lymphoma, Doctor Abramson. Welcome
Speaker 2: to nightside, sir, how are you tonight?
Speaker 4: Thanks to be with you.
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with this actor. I don't watch as
Speaker 2: much TV as I should. Full house actor Dave Coolier.
Speaker 2: Is that how his name is pronounced. He's a young guy,
Speaker 2: as I understand it, and he's dealing with this might
Speaker 2: have been the disease that claimed the life of former
Speaker 2: Massachusetts Senator Paul song As if I'm not.
Speaker 5: Mistaken, Yeah, this a song has also had a type
Speaker 5: of non Hodgkin lymphoma. Turns out there are lots of
Speaker 5: different types of non host so they probably had different diseases,
Speaker 5: but all under the same umbrella.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what okay when you say how many varieties
Speaker 2: are we talking about here? Because that's the first thing,
Speaker 2: and I always learned things in interviews. That's the first
Speaker 2: thing I learned. I thought that the diagnosis of stage
Speaker 2: three well a non Hodgkin lymphoma was one type of disease.
Speaker 2: Explained to us why there's such a number of variations
Speaker 2: that fit under that umbrella if you could.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure so. Lymphoma is a general term for any
Speaker 5: cancer that comes from O lymphocyte, which is a type
Speaker 5: of white blood cell that we all have in our
Speaker 5: blood stream, lives in our lymph nodes all of our organs.
Speaker 5: They're designed to keep us safe from infections, viruses, bacteria,
Speaker 5: that sort of thing. We all have two types of
Speaker 5: healthy lymphocytes, B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes, So non hoggen
Speaker 5: lymphomas can come from either B lymphocytes or T lymphocytes,
Speaker 5: and so that leads to either B cell non hodgegen
Speaker 5: lymphomas and T cell non hodge gen lymphomas. Turns out
Speaker 5: there are several dozens of each type, and within the
Speaker 5: B cell non hodgeg lymphomas, which is the type that
Speaker 5: Dave Coolay announced that he has, there are close to
Speaker 5: four dozen different types of B cell non hodgeg lymphoma,
Speaker 5: and each of these diseases actually has a different biology
Speaker 5: based on what type of mutation happens within a lymphocyte
Speaker 5: when it goes awry will lead to the different type
Speaker 5: of lymphoma that develops, and some of them can be
Speaker 5: very aggressive, nasty, dangerous diseases. Other B cell non hogg
Speaker 5: lymphomas are actually we call in lend very slow growing
Speaker 5: and may never even be life threatening. So there's really
Speaker 5: a huge variety and that affects how we approach it.
Speaker 2: So it's good to know that, yes, yeah, I'm stunned
Speaker 2: by that. And I assume that that doesn't make your
Speaker 2: job as the treating physician, surgeon or whatever and the
Speaker 2: easier because I assumed that the variety of treatments must
Speaker 2: be specialized for each type of this disease.
Speaker 5: Well, that's exactly right. It didn't used to be that way.
Speaker 5: It used to be that as oncologists, we had a
Speaker 5: limited number of tools in our tool chest, and they
Speaker 5: were basic chemotherapy drugs, and so we treated all lymphomas
Speaker 5: and a one size fits all approach with sort of
Speaker 5: old fashioned chemotherapies. It turns out today, the more we
Speaker 5: understand the biology of each of these different underlying lymphomas,
Speaker 5: the more we can treat them in a directed way.
Speaker 5: And that's why today each of these diseases often treated
Speaker 5: distinctly with different types of targeted drugs, different types of
Speaker 5: immunotherapy is where we actually help harness the power of
Speaker 5: the patient's own immune system against their own cancer to
Speaker 5: eradicate it, and that's led to much better outcomes. Across
Speaker 5: the board. Regardless of the type of lymphoma, a patient
Speaker 5: might have.
Speaker 2: One thing that I'm sure everyone who's listening tonight is
Speaker 2: thinking is what are the symptoms? What? What do you
Speaker 2: need to look out for? Obviously, getting to your doctor
Speaker 2: once at least maybe twice a year, getting some blood
Speaker 2: tests are critical here. But for those who are not
Speaker 2: being that vigilant, is that is it fatigue that might
Speaker 2: give someone some concern to be checked out. What are
Speaker 2: some of the early symptoms that to get to get
Speaker 2: ahead of this disease.
Speaker 5: It's a great question.
Speaker 4: Dan.
Speaker 5: You know, there's no specific symptom for lymphoma. There are
Speaker 5: a number of potential symptoms. The most common symptom, believe
Speaker 5: it or not, is just painless enlargement of lymphnodes. Generally,
Speaker 5: lympho aren't painful, but if you notice a lump or
Speaker 5: a bump that you hadn't noticed before. Lymphodes live commonly
Speaker 5: in the neck, under the arms and the armpits and
Speaker 5: the groin. They look deeper in the body too, but
Speaker 5: you wouldn't be able to feel them, so unexplained painless
Speaker 5: swelling in those regions certainly warms evaluation. Additionally, some lymphomas,
Speaker 5: particularly the more aggressive types of lymphoma, can have systemic symptoms.
Speaker 5: These could be unexplained fevers, drenching sweats at night where
Speaker 5: people drench through their bedclothes and their sheets and have
Speaker 5: to kind of change them in the middle of the night,
Speaker 5: unexplained fatigue, unexplained weight loss, that kind of thing. But
Speaker 5: the most common thing is just you know, somebody's shaving
Speaker 5: and they'd notice a bump that they hadn't noticed before,
Speaker 5: or they just feel around and find something. But certainly
Speaker 5: any unexplained symptoms certainly warn't a visit to your doctor.
Speaker 2: Is there a correlation in terms of gender or a
Speaker 2: with the frequency of this.
Speaker 5: Disease, You know, it depends on the subtype of lymphoma,
Speaker 5: But in general, lymphomas can occur at any age. They
Speaker 5: can occur in children, and my oldest patients are in
Speaker 5: their hundreds on average. The median age is in the
Speaker 5: mid sixties, but it can literally occur at any age.
Speaker 5: And I just take care of adults, and my youngest
Speaker 5: patients are teenagers and my oldest patients are centenarians. There
Speaker 5: are no very clear risk factors in general most patients
Speaker 5: lymphomas or what we call sporadic or random in nature,
Speaker 5: or a lightning strike, if you will. There are certain
Speaker 5: folks who are at slightly higher risk. Those include people
Speaker 5: with autoimmune diseases, people with certain chronic infections like HIV,
Speaker 5: people whose immune systems are suppressed for other reasons, such
Speaker 5: as they've had an organ transplanter. They take an immune
Speaker 5: suppressant for an autoimmune disease. And then there's some association
Speaker 5: with things like smoking and obesity. So healthy living is
Speaker 5: always good. But the majority of people who develop a lymphoma,
Speaker 5: it's not from anything they ate, drank, smoked, where they lived,
Speaker 5: anything like that. It's simply a stroke of bad luck.
Speaker 5: Although i will say all lymphomas are treatable. Many of
Speaker 5: them are highly curable, so I'm always optimistic when I'm
Speaker 5: meeting with a patient for the very first time.
Speaker 2: Doctor, I hear it in your voice, and I hear
Speaker 2: also in your voice a passion for what you do,
Speaker 2: And I'm always amazed whenever I talk to you, know,
Speaker 2: the high profile docs like yourself, that you have to
Speaker 2: deal with people every day who are getting horrific news,
Speaker 2: and yet you continue to carry on. And I just
Speaker 2: want to say you probably don't get thanked enough. But
Speaker 2: any doctor who I've ever talked to, you take care
Speaker 2: of us when we are at the lowest point in
Speaker 2: our lives, and you many times cure us and many
Speaker 2: times help and always help us. I just want to
Speaker 2: say thank you for your time tonight and thank you
Speaker 2: for what you do.
Speaker 5: Thanks Dan, it's my honor and privilege.
Speaker 4: It really is.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you it's I'm just blown away by
Speaker 2: by your passion. And again, I'd love to have you
Speaker 2: back at some point periodically, because I think the more
Speaker 2: we know about these diseases, the earlier all of us
Speaker 2: can catch them and present ourselves to great physicians and
Speaker 2: surgeons like yourself. Thank you again, Doctor Jeremy Abramson, the
Speaker 2: director of le Lymphoma Program at mass General Hospital Cancer Center.
Speaker 2: Thanks again, Doctor Abramson. Thank you, good night. Thanks well
Speaker 2: we come back. We're going to end on a really
Speaker 2: up note. Bobby's Books in Winchester. It's the newest pop up.
Speaker 2: I don't want to spoil the surprise here, but it's
Speaker 2: run by a second greater. All proceeds go to charity.
Speaker 2: We'll talk with Bobby Atchinson and his mom. He's the
Speaker 2: second grade at the Ambrose Was Elementary School in Winchester.
Speaker 2: Also talked with his mom, Gina. Gina, I thought, I
Speaker 2: think it's pronounced right after this, and we'll find out
Speaker 2: everything we need to know about the newest pop up
Speaker 2: in Winchester.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Side Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm delighted to welcome two guests, Bobby Atchinson
Speaker 2: and his mom, Gina Atchinson. Welcome to both of you.
Speaker 2: How are you both doing tonight?
Speaker 6: Good?
Speaker 2: Good? That's Bob. I can tell Bob, Hey, Bob, you
Speaker 2: have started Winchester's newest pop up? What what do you?
Speaker 2: What do you do? By the way, I want to
Speaker 2: just mention that the Boston Globe, actually I think did
Speaker 2: this story, uh, and the reporter there is a woman
Speaker 2: named Cara Baskin uh. And I want to give Cara credit,
Speaker 2: uh for for doing this story. How does it feel, Bob,
Speaker 2: to already have been in a newspaper now be on
Speaker 2: the radio?
Speaker 6: Really good?
Speaker 2: Really good? So, so tell us about your store? What
Speaker 2: what's the sale at your store?
Speaker 6: Did you say it again?
Speaker 2: Sure? Tell us about your store? What what do you
Speaker 2: what are you selling?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: What's what's going on? Tell us about your your your
Speaker 2: your project? Here, what's what's the deal?
Speaker 6: So we're selling books and all the proceeds go to
Speaker 6: the Home of Little Wanders. The Home of Little Wanders
Speaker 6: are kids that don't have homes.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm very familiar with that. That's a I think
Speaker 2: it's still in Jamaica. Plane. It's a great institution. So
Speaker 2: where do you get the book? What type of books
Speaker 2: are you selling?
Speaker 6: We're selling elementary books, some older kids books because my
Speaker 6: friends and family helped out donating books to us.
Speaker 2: Really, so your your your customers are kids your age
Speaker 2: and a little older. I guess right, yeah, yes, okay,
Speaker 2: how did you How did you come up with this idea?
Speaker 2: Did you and your mom work on it together? Is
Speaker 2: this a project? Was it your idea?
Speaker 6: So I had a bunch of books in my bedroom
Speaker 6: and they started paralleling up. I said we should do
Speaker 6: something about these books. We started donating them, and I said,
Speaker 6: why don't we make a bookstore?
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 6: My mom said yeah, and then we and then we started.
Speaker 4: Not doing it.
Speaker 6: And then my mom said, why don't we give all
Speaker 6: the money to charity? And I said, yeah, of course,
Speaker 6: and then she said, we could give it to some
Speaker 6: home of the Little Wonders. And she looked at there's
Speaker 6: the closest one by, and there was one really close by.
Speaker 2: And then I said, go ahead, Bobby. Do you mean
Speaker 2: do you mean to interrupt?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 2: Go ahead?
Speaker 6: I said that that would be great to do.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 2: That's a great idea. So how do people get in
Speaker 2: touch with you if they want to purchase a book?
Speaker 6: So in the morning a lot of people come by
Speaker 6: or walk by it and they might try to get
Speaker 6: the books, or they can just take a look at them.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so now it's called the pop up store.
Speaker 2: You're probably smarter at this terminology than me. Do you do?
Speaker 2: You have like a little stand in front of your
Speaker 2: house and you on a nice day you bring some
Speaker 2: of the books out and you talk to people as
Speaker 2: they're going by. Is that how it works? Or did
Speaker 2: they come up and ring the doorbell and say, hey, Bob,
Speaker 2: what sort of books do you have for sale?
Speaker 6: That never really happened?
Speaker 2: How's it?
Speaker 6: We do it at Starbucks? I mean sucks.
Speaker 2: So you show up, oh, okay, the Starbucks in Winchester,
Speaker 2: and what do you do? You set up a little
Speaker 2: table or something with books.
Speaker 3: We set up a.
Speaker 6: Little table and we have like bookstands on it, you
Speaker 6: know those spinning things that have a bunch of things
Speaker 6: around it. That's where we put most.
Speaker 7: Of the bigger books because they don't sit in our shelves.
Speaker 6: They don't in our shelves.
Speaker 2: Well, this is great. I'm looking at the picture that
Speaker 2: was in the Globe in Carabaskin's column and that really
Speaker 2: you got some stands, you got you had quite a
Speaker 2: collection of books. Are you a biblio file? That that's
Speaker 2: a word that means loves books. So you're a biblia file? Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's from the French. In France they call libraries
Speaker 2: a BiblioTech and that's that's where the word. So you
Speaker 2: now know you're a bibliophile, okay, And that's a good
Speaker 2: thing to be because I love books too, and these
Speaker 2: are books that this is great. You got to sign
Speaker 2: and everything. You really how long you've been doing this, Bob?
Speaker 6: It started last week.
Speaker 2: So this is only a week old. Wow, boy, we
Speaker 2: got in on the ground floor here. These are great pictures.
Speaker 2: I wish you're best of luck with this. Can I
Speaker 2: talk to your mom for a second. Is she is
Speaker 2: she close by. Hi, Hi, Hi Jenna, how are you?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: This is quite quite an entrepreneurial effort. I just uh
Speaker 2: looked at the picture here of Bob at his table.
Speaker 2: This one looks like I'm not sure. I guess you
Speaker 2: inside or outside? This data They in the cold, the weather.
Speaker 2: He doing it in the winter time.
Speaker 7: We're actually not We're just going to do it for
Speaker 7: three weekends leading up to Giving Tuesday and December. And
Speaker 7: it's right outside in front of the Starbucks in Winchester
Speaker 7: Center from nine to eleven am. And he's collected books
Speaker 7: from a lot of his friends in the community and
Speaker 7: kids in his elementary school, and also his own books
Speaker 7: that he's read that he wants to share with other kids.
Speaker 7: So every book's five bucks and all the money goes
Speaker 7: to the Little Home, the Home by Little Wanders. And
Speaker 7: we're very proud of him. He's very excited about this opportunity.
Speaker 7: So thank you so much for being interested in chatting
Speaker 7: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, he did a nice job. He's entrepreneurial, that's
Speaker 2: for sure. I explained to him that he's now a bibliophile.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you heard my explanation him,
Speaker 2: but obviously in France, the library's called the BiblioTech and
Speaker 2: so that's I think the derivation of the word bibliophile.
Speaker 2: So he now can he knows he's a bibliophile. Well,
Speaker 2: handsome looking young man, obviously a great presentation. Has this
Speaker 2: story been in the Globe or is this going to
Speaker 2: be in the Globe over the weekend?
Speaker 7: It just went out today. So Kerabaskin did her newsletter
Speaker 7: Parenting and Filtered on Thursday, and then the Globe published
Speaker 7: it this morning. So we're very proud of him and
Speaker 7: it's been exciting to see the response.
Speaker 2: Well, that's great. So you'll be there tomorrow morning from
Speaker 2: nine to eleven, Yes, at the Winchester Starbucks. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to have all my Dunkin Donut friends. I'm a
Speaker 2: Dunkin Donuts guy that I want you to at least
Speaker 2: go over to the Starbucks exactly downtown Winchester.
Speaker 7: Thank you to go into the Starbucks. We'll be right outside.
Speaker 2: They give you did you have to get are they cooperating?
Speaker 2: Did they give you permission to set up out.
Speaker 7: There or is this just a little permit in the town.
Speaker 7: So we reached out to the town and then we
Speaker 7: reached out to the charity, and it's been a nice little,
Speaker 7: you know, end to end experiment to kind of show him,
Speaker 7: you know, something he's passionate about, which is reading in
Speaker 7: books and how that can benefit other kids who might be.
Speaker 2: Great just great connections for him. And he's gonna he's
Speaker 2: gonna be he's already something. He's going to be really something.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we're going to follow his career and figure
Speaker 2: out that he uh, he's going to do something special,
Speaker 2: that's for sure. Jenna, is it Jenna Regina?
Speaker 5: I'm sorry either way, it's Gina, but you know, all right, Gena,
Speaker 5: all right, Gina, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: You should be very proud of him to Bob tell
Speaker 2: him again. Congratulations, Thank you so.
Speaker 7: Much, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: When we get back, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 2: Pink House up on Plumb Island. Where do you hear
Speaker 2: this story? Here comes the news