Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ.
Speaker 2: Boston Radio, Madison. Thank you very much, boy. We have
Speaker 2: lots to talk about tonight, Lots happening in the news
Speaker 2: and lots happening on Nightside. My name is Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: I'm the host of Nightside. This is a midweek edition
Speaker 2: Wednesday Night. We're every Monday through Friday night from eight
Speaker 2: until midnight on WBZ ten thirty and their AM dial
Speaker 2: in Boston. Apparently there's going to be another big development
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty four presidential race. On Friday. We
Speaker 2: will talk about a statement a decision that were led
Speaker 2: to believe Robert F. Kennedy Junior has made. We'll talk
Speaker 2: about that tonight. We're also going to talk in the
Speaker 2: nine o'clock hour, just to change the pace a little
Speaker 2: bit about some Boston restaurants which are now allowing, maybe
Speaker 2: even encouraging people to bring their dogs with them to
Speaker 2: sit outside outside dining here in Boston. Some restaurants are
Speaker 2: dog friendly. Big article in the Globe today that caught
Speaker 2: my eye, and we'll talk about that. We also have
Speaker 2: a Globe article Tomorrow Night Tomorrow coming out tomorrow, which
Speaker 2: we just saw, in which the Globe will disclose that
Speaker 2: four United States Senators from New England, including Elizabeth Warren,
Speaker 2: Maggie Hassen, Jean Shaheen, and Angus King, their ancestors owned slaves. Yes,
Speaker 2: we'll talk about that. There were no other members of
Speaker 2: the congressional delegation in New England whose ancestors owned slaves,
Speaker 2: but we'll get to all of that. An incredible story
Speaker 2: about the Globe, and again I continue to commend them
Speaker 2: for doing some really great journalism lately. But we're going
Speaker 2: to start off with a story out of Cambridge. Joining
Speaker 2: me as our first guest tonight is the owner of
Speaker 2: Cambridge Brewing Company, Phil Bonatime. Phil, give me the correct
Speaker 2: pronunciation on the last name in case I missed that.
Speaker 3: Dan, you got real close. It's Banatime, ben Atime.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's great. I wasn't sure. So you folks have
Speaker 2: been in operation here for a long time. I think
Speaker 2: it's thirty five years.
Speaker 3: Correct, that's correct, nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: Okay, and it's Look, everybody, whether you happen to like
Speaker 2: beer or not, loves the idea of local brewing companies.
Speaker 2: But the Globe, again citing the Globe here over the weekend,
Speaker 2: reported that this brew pub in Kendall Square is going
Speaker 2: to close in December. So that is not a happy
Speaker 2: story for us. What's going on? First of all, Phil.
Speaker 3: Well, it's not necessarily a not happy story. I mean
Speaker 3: it's it's been a thirty five year run. We've had
Speaker 3: an incredible time of success. It's been very rewarding for
Speaker 3: me and.
Speaker 4: For all involved.
Speaker 3: And I'm getting up there, Dan and at a time,
Speaker 3: you know, at some point you got to say, well,
Speaker 3: maybe this is enough. Maybe we set out to do
Speaker 3: what we set out to do and we accomplished it.
Speaker 3: So I'm feeling really proud about what we've done and
Speaker 3: all the you know, the good times we've had there,
Speaker 3: and all the people that have come through there and
Speaker 3: been trained as brewers and chefs and what have you,
Speaker 3: and the legacy that we're leaving. Well, and maybe let's
Speaker 3: let me.
Speaker 2: Just first of all say I do understand that a
Speaker 2: job well done and accomplished in a career is something
Speaker 2: you celebrate. However, I would love to know how did
Speaker 2: you get started? What happened? Did you wake up someday
Speaker 2: what we're doing Previously, little kids don't grow up to
Speaker 2: say I'm going to become a brewer, I guess unless
Speaker 2: they follow baseball and live in Milwaukee. Maybe, but that's
Speaker 2: a different type of brewer that we're talking about here.
Speaker 2: How did you become a brewer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it started. I was out in the Bay Area
Speaker 3: living in the early eighties and brewing beer in my kitchen,
Speaker 3: having traveled in Europe and seeing what good beer could be,
Speaker 3: and then coming back to the States and they being,
Speaker 3: you know, basically what we had were yellow physy industrial loggers,
Speaker 3: and there's so much more out there. So it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: let me learn how to make beer in my kitchen.
Speaker 3: And then I was in as I said, in California,
Speaker 3: and they changed the laws out there in the early
Speaker 3: eighties that allowed you to produce beer and sell it
Speaker 3: on site. Previously, these things were strictly separated into what
Speaker 3: we call the three tier system. So there's the producer
Speaker 3: and the wholesaler and the retailer. So now restaurants are
Speaker 3: tap rooms or what have you could make beer and
Speaker 3: sell it direct to the public. And I thought, wait, great,
Speaker 3: So I went to the University of California and I
Speaker 3: took some some brewing classes, and I drove back to
Speaker 3: Cambridge to open a brew pub.
Speaker 2: Now, when you say you drove back to Cambridge, originally
Speaker 2: you a Bostonian, a Cambridge guy who was out there?
Speaker 2: Are you at here southern Connecticut? Close enough? That's close enough,
Speaker 2: I thought, So, what what are you going to do?
Speaker 2: I mean, you're going to relax for a few days,
Speaker 2: I hope maybe even a few weeks. What's next on
Speaker 2: Phil's agenda?
Speaker 3: No, that's kind of you to ask, you know. I
Speaker 3: I'm not pressuring myself a whole lot to figure that out.
Speaker 3: I have some hobbies. I play a lot of tennis.
Speaker 3: I look forward to that. Beyond that, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm going to take it easy for a while, and
Speaker 3: I am kind of a restless guy. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 3: going to try to find something meaningful, try to give
Speaker 3: back in some way. Uh, you know, maybe maybe in
Speaker 3: the foods or food pantry or Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2: Did you think of selling the brewery? I'm sure that
Speaker 2: must have crossed your mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he asked a great question, and sure, but to
Speaker 3: sell in that question is did you think of selling it?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: The it really is us. It's myself, My brew master,
Speaker 3: Will Myers has been with me for thirty two years.
Speaker 3: My chef David Drew's been with me for sixteen. My
Speaker 3: GM Laura Peters has been with me for eighteen years.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the it, and that's not for sale.
Speaker 3: I mean, these folks want to go on to new
Speaker 3: opportunities and new challenges, and I just sort of feel
Speaker 3: like we've done what we set out to do and
Speaker 3: it's a good time to move on to other things.
Speaker 2: I love your integrity, man, I really do feel that's
Speaker 2: an amazing statement you just made. But folks can still
Speaker 2: come by the Cambridge Brewing Company anytime. I guess not
Speaker 2: between now and December twentieth. December twentieth, this last call.
Speaker 3: I sure hope that they do. I mean, there's it's
Speaker 3: been an important place to a lot of people, and
Speaker 3: I hope they come by and share them memory and
Speaker 3: a pint and a smile and we'll we do. We
Speaker 3: still have four months to go.
Speaker 2: That's fabulous, Phil give you guys are in Kendall Square.
Speaker 2: I want to give the specific address in case someone's
Speaker 2: driving around tonight they put that address in the GPS,
Speaker 2: either for tonight or for some time this weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one Kendall Square, which is a development the
Speaker 3: corner of Hampshire and Broadway in Kendall Square and Cambridge.
Speaker 2: That's great. Well, look, thanks, thanks for what you've done,
Speaker 2: and thanks for being with us tonight. And I've never
Speaker 2: met you before. First time we talked your class act
Speaker 2: really mean.
Speaker 4: That, a buddy.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that, and thank you for drawn some attention
Speaker 3: to what we've done and the fact that we're still
Speaker 3: going to be there for a little while.
Speaker 2: Four more months, four more months, Thanks so much. Phil
Speaker 2: really enjoyed the conversations. Well, that's interesting. Now we're gonna
Speaker 2: go from beer a brewing. We're gonna go to some
Speaker 2: clever ways to waste less food, save money, and live
Speaker 2: more sustainably. This is something you need to listen to
Speaker 2: and I need to listen to as well, although I
Speaker 2: tend to just buy what I need and uh, and
Speaker 2: I think that's what all of us should do. But
Speaker 2: we're going to talk with a very interesting author whose
Speaker 2: name is Carolyn Pilgrim. We'll be right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now, back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nice Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is tarre Lynn Pilgrim. She's an author written
Speaker 2: a book, No Scrap Left Behind, My Life Without Food
Speaker 2: Waste look something we all should aspire to a resourceful,
Speaker 2: budget conscious consumers and can also pocket an average of
Speaker 2: thirteen hundred dollars a year by doing this one simple thing.
Speaker 2: Waste less food sounds simple. First of all, welcome Tara Lynn.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 5: I'm doing great?
Speaker 2: Sure, now, it sounds really simple, three words waste less food.
Speaker 2: But how do you do that? You have to have
Speaker 2: some discipline. You have to make sure you eat or
Speaker 2: your family eats what you buy, and you don't leave
Speaker 2: it in the refrigerator, you know, and have to throw
Speaker 2: it out as it's gone bad, or you don't put
Speaker 2: out food that people don't need. How do you do this?
Speaker 2: How do you waste less food realistically?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, it takes a lot of discipline at first.
Speaker 5: And I when I first started doing this, I said
Speaker 5: I was going to do it for a year. I
Speaker 5: was going to get my food why send to zero?
Speaker 5: And I was going to write a book and tell
Speaker 5: people how to do it. But by the time I
Speaker 5: figured out how to do it, and I had like
Speaker 5: wasting getting to zero was a challenge, but getting to
Speaker 5: the point where I had drastically changed my life just
Speaker 5: got to be a lifestyle, you know, and and it
Speaker 5: wasn't so hard. Now, I will say, the most important thing,
Speaker 5: if I had to pick one thing to tell your
Speaker 5: viewers is not to buy too much food, because it
Speaker 5: doesn't matter how much you learn about, you know, up
Speaker 5: cycling and refrigeration and storage. If things are going bad
Speaker 5: faster than you can eat it, there's really not a
Speaker 5: lot you can do. So that right there makes a
Speaker 5: big difference.
Speaker 2: Type Also, like, what if I could ask what type
Speaker 2: of foods? Look, I assume it's it's primarily vegetables. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, but I'm assuming it's primarily vegetables that people
Speaker 2: have in that crisper and all of a sudden they realized, oh,
Speaker 2: it's been there too long. What type of food do
Speaker 2: people unintentionally weigh? So I'm not talking about the person
Speaker 2: who has to buy you know, you know, seven pounds
Speaker 2: of shrimp for a little get together with a few neighbors,
Speaker 2: and you realize that only half of a pound of
Speaker 2: shrimp was eaten and you don't know what they do
Speaker 2: with it. You put in the refrigerator. In three days later,
Speaker 2: you throw it out. I'm talking about what is the
Speaker 2: type of food that the average person wastes unintentionally?
Speaker 5: Well Refaed recently released a study saying that people who
Speaker 5: don't eat their leftovers waste four times as much food. Now,
Speaker 5: you would think a person who says, you know, I'm
Speaker 5: not getting leftovers, I'll make less food. But it just
Speaker 5: it doesn't seem to work that way. So things that
Speaker 5: you've already cooked. Now, I will say, one of the
Speaker 5: things I struggle with the most is like the produce
Speaker 5: that you can't really cook into something else, you know,
Speaker 5: like romaine, lettuce or grapes. But you know, we do
Speaker 5: think of produce. But also meat has a very important
Speaker 5: time stamp on it, you know, like you really have
Speaker 5: to get that in the freezer or eat it up
Speaker 5: before before it gets you sick. But really, if people
Speaker 5: were to focus just on their leftovers, that would make
Speaker 5: a huge difference.
Speaker 2: Hey, what I do, and I do this maybe once
Speaker 2: a month or a couple of times a month. I
Speaker 2: like burgers on the grill. Okay, I know that's not
Speaker 2: the greatest food for you, but I will get a
Speaker 2: pound of burger, and I will before I put in
Speaker 2: the refrigerator. I will make my hamburg patties, wrap them
Speaker 2: up in aluminum, put them in the freezer, and when
Speaker 2: there's a night that I want to have something that
Speaker 2: I like, and quick fire up that grill and I
Speaker 2: got dinner and nothing gets wasted. Great, just as opposed
Speaker 2: to putting the brown beef in the refrigerator and letting
Speaker 2: it sit there for a couple of days or a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. I just think again a little bit
Speaker 2: of discipline, and also just you know, all of us
Speaker 2: should know what do we like to eat. I just
Speaker 2: think that there's so much of that. I'm huge on
Speaker 2: fruit in the morning on my cereals, strawberries, blueberries, bananas,
Speaker 2: whatever whatever is in style, but I don't buy too much.
Speaker 2: And because I don't, it's wasting. It is truly wasting money.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm too money conscious on it, but I'm serious.
Speaker 2: The side benefit is that my refrigerator is always full
Speaker 2: of the stuff that you go through quickly, like milk
Speaker 2: and orange juice. I'm a pretty good eater. And I
Speaker 2: got my fruit there and got my cookies in the pantry,
Speaker 2: and I'm a happy camper.
Speaker 5: Yeah No, And I think also paying attention to how
Speaker 5: much you're going to eat and planning ahead. Like, I
Speaker 5: think something you said it was really smart. It's how
Speaker 5: you individually wrap your hamburger patties. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, Like, you don't just put them all in
Speaker 5: the freezer. You know that you're not going to eat
Speaker 5: them all, you know, you know you're going to have
Speaker 5: to pull out a couple at a time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And most nights I'm eating alone because of my job.
Speaker 2: I have a family and all that, but I'm on
Speaker 2: a hear from eight to midnight and I want to
Speaker 2: eat at five o'clock. Nobody else wants to eat at
Speaker 2: five o'clock. That's fine with me. So is it possible?
Speaker 2: Now you're the author, have you gotten to the point
Speaker 2: where during the course of a month, there's no food
Speaker 2: that you waste, There's no food that you throw away.
Speaker 5: So when I when I was doing this, I had
Speaker 5: a toughware container in the freezer that would hold about
Speaker 5: like six cups of water, and my goal would be
Speaker 5: to not like to keep a month's worth of waste
Speaker 5: inside that container. And there were some months where I
Speaker 5: would like like shove it in to make it thick.
Speaker 5: So it's like I've got to keep this in for
Speaker 5: a month. But as I got better at it, it
Speaker 5: got lower and lower. And the month that I wasted
Speaker 5: the lease, it was only way full and it weighed
Speaker 5: two pounds. And I had two little kids at the time.
Speaker 5: I was a toddler and a four year old and
Speaker 5: a husband and me, and that was it for the
Speaker 5: entire month.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. That is fifty good. So so you
Speaker 2: not only wrote the book, but you live the life. Now.
Speaker 2: How long has the book been around? And it is
Speaker 2: this something that people could buy and use as as
Speaker 2: a guide.
Speaker 5: You know, it's funny you say that because I just
Speaker 5: got my copy in the mail yesterday and I've been
Speaker 5: waiting for my copy because I want to use it
Speaker 5: in my kitchen.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just out now.
Speaker 3: Yeah maybe not.
Speaker 5: Well, it's available for pre sale and it will start
Speaker 5: going out for deliverying in September seventeenth.
Speaker 2: No scrap left behind, life with my Life without food waste.
Speaker 2: How long have you been doing this? That's my other question.
Speaker 2: Is there something that took a period of time for
Speaker 2: you to to get accustomed to before you wrote the book.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you didn't write this book two months ago.
Speaker 5: Oh well, I would have been able to go through
Speaker 5: this whole thing a lot faster if I had had,
Speaker 5: if someone had written this book for me. But you know,
Speaker 5: I started in twenty seventeen. There was a lot less
Speaker 5: awareness about food waste at the time, and I was
Speaker 5: really kind of scrambling a lot because I had to
Speaker 5: learn all of this stuff on my own. For example,
Speaker 5: you really got to clean out and organize your whole
Speaker 5: kitchen beforehand, and I didn't do that u till I
Speaker 5: was like eight months in. So it wasn't until I
Speaker 5: hit the one year mark, so from twenty seventeen to
Speaker 5: twenty eighteen that I felt like I finally had it,
Speaker 5: figure it out, and it went to my husband. I
Speaker 5: was like, can we do this another year, because like,
Speaker 5: it took me this long to learn it, now I
Speaker 5: want to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And so those were like the two years that I
Speaker 5: really focused heavily on this, and then I wrote it
Speaker 5: and got it published and.
Speaker 2: Now it's out and nobody went to bed hungry in
Speaker 2: your family. I mean, that's the point. You had everything
Speaker 2: you needed, and I'm serious, it's like you were disciplined
Speaker 2: and all of that. What kicked it off in your
Speaker 2: mind that's my last question. There must have been some
Speaker 2: moment in time when you said, you know what, we'll
Speaker 2: waste it too much food, or you must have read
Speaker 2: something or seen something.
Speaker 1: What was it. I?
Speaker 5: Yes, I read something. It was an article about starving kids.
Speaker 5: I mean, I've always felt guilty every time I throw
Speaker 5: out food. And I had read somewhere many years ago
Speaker 5: that the average family wastes enough to feed an additional
Speaker 5: family member. So yeah, I know. So I would always
Speaker 5: think about, like this kid that could be alive because
Speaker 5: of me, but instead of wasting my food. And I
Speaker 5: was reading this specific article that said that in some country, okay,
Speaker 5: I think it was Nigeria, there are villages that had
Speaker 5: lost all their toddlers to hunger. And I had tollers
Speaker 5: at the time, and it just destroyed me because I
Speaker 5: was just imagining, like what my life would be like
Speaker 5: and all my friends and all my family if all
Speaker 5: the toddlers were gone.
Speaker 2: That's a great story, great motivation, And yeah, I hope
Speaker 2: people get the book No Scrap Left Behind My Life
Speaker 2: Without Food Waste by Terarylyn Pilgrim. It's available. You can
Speaker 2: order it Amazon wherever you get your books. That's for sure. Terrell,
Speaker 2: and I enjoyed this conversation a whole lot. Thank you
Speaker 2: very much for having joined us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. When we get back, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about American history and civic education. There is now a
Speaker 2: National Commission on American History and Civic Education. And I
Speaker 2: would say it's about time. We'll be back on Nightside
Speaker 2: right after the news. At the bottom of the ear.
Speaker 2: My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside on WBZ ten
Speaker 2: thirty and your AM radio dial. If for some reason
Speaker 2: ever traveling or trouble getting us on the radio ten
Speaker 2: thirty and the AM dial, and we have a big,
Speaker 2: powerful signal, you always go to the iHeartRadio app and
Speaker 2: you can listen to us anywhere in the country. The
Speaker 2: other night, last Friday night, my producer Marita was driving
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania to a family event with her husband and daughter.
Speaker 2: She was listening to us in Pennsylvania, and she told
Speaker 2: me today that the busy signal boomed into Pennsylvania. But
Speaker 2: I know that anyway, we'll be back on Nightside, more
Speaker 2: conversation right after this.
Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Ray, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, I think all of you who listened to
Speaker 2: Nightside over the years know that I have for a
Speaker 2: long time bemoaned the d emphasis on history, but even
Speaker 2: more so on civics in high schools in our neck
Speaker 2: of the woods and across America. There is a new
Speaker 2: National Commission on American History and Civic Education that is
Speaker 2: founded by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni with
Speaker 2: me is the head of that organization. He's the president
Speaker 2: and chief executive officer of ACTA again, the American Council
Speaker 2: of Trustees and Alumni. Michael Polakoff, I hope I got
Speaker 2: that right, Polyokov. Michael, give me a good pronunciation, so
Speaker 2: I don't mess it up a.
Speaker 6: Third time, Polyakoff, But I'm not great to be on.
Speaker 2: The show with Polyakoff. Michael, great to be with you.
Speaker 2: We probably have a lot of mutual friends. I recently
Speaker 2: had the chancellor of Vanderbilt University on the program, and
Speaker 2: we often have folks from higher education. Uh, and I
Speaker 2: think this is an incredibly positive development. Tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit about what the American Council of Trustees and Alumni,
Speaker 2: what that organization actually is, and tell us about the
Speaker 2: National Commission and what it intends to accomplish.
Speaker 6: Sure, Dan, I'm glad you're speaking to Chancellor Deermeyer as well.
Speaker 6: We need more college leadership like that.
Speaker 2: He's a University Chicago guy, heart and soul, a though
Speaker 2: he was educated in other institutions, he certainly follows the
Speaker 2: code that the University of Chicago has invested in so
Speaker 2: many people.
Speaker 6: A rule of law, freedom of speech. These things are
Speaker 6: the lifeblood of a strong campus and of a free society. Yes,
Speaker 6: we were founded in nineteen ninety five and we took
Speaker 6: it as our mission to strengthen academic standards, freedom of speech,
Speaker 6: and intellectual diversity on campus, and accountability for costs and
Speaker 6: spending practices. And it's our focus on ensuring that the
Speaker 6: rising generation of Americans understand what it is to be
Speaker 6: a citizen, what the obligations are, our institutions, and how
Speaker 6: we got them that has led us to put this
Speaker 6: wonderful commission of education leaders scholars together. I think Dan,
Speaker 6: you and I are very much on the same page.
Speaker 6: An ignorant citizen is a disempowered citizen, the kind of
Speaker 6: person who's not going to have recourse to the rule
Speaker 6: of law but to destructiveness. And we've been seeing entirely
Speaker 6: too much of that to our detriment and to the
Speaker 6: peril of our future. And we want to make our
Speaker 6: gift for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our
Speaker 6: country a much much better educated group of young Americans.
Speaker 2: I have a question, and you know, when you talk
Speaker 2: about intellectual diversity, that's the only sort of diversity that
Speaker 2: the folks who run universities and colleges across this country
Speaker 2: and have run them for the last thirty or so years,
Speaker 2: have not been interested in fostering. I'm very familiar with
Speaker 2: the with the faculty at several great universities here in
Speaker 2: the Boston area, and I know many of them personally,
Speaker 2: and I know some of my friends on both the
Speaker 2: right and the left. But the presence of folks who
Speaker 2: are just inculcated with a progressive philosophy dominate college faculties
Speaker 2: across this country. And how did we ever get to
Speaker 2: that point of such imbalance within the university, which is
Speaker 2: supposed to be a petridish of ideas for students and
Speaker 2: faculty alike.
Speaker 6: Yes, indeed, the hiring practice is so broken that it
Speaker 6: simply reinforces the echo chamber. Harvard, for example, did a
Speaker 6: survey of its faculty, ninety seven percent reported that they
Speaker 6: were liberal or very liberal. I'm not making a value
Speaker 6: judgment about their politics, but what kind of discourse goes
Speaker 6: on on that campus. And I think the cause a
Speaker 6: line between that kind of echo chamber and the inability
Speaker 6: of Harvard to really think through the sorts of policies
Speaker 6: that ought to govern on campus is self evident.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, we've heard a lot the last few years
Speaker 2: about you know, diversity, equity inclusion, which is fine, okay,
Speaker 2: your student body should come from different backgrounds and from
Speaker 2: different areas geographically, if you draw from different areas, but
Speaker 2: there's no interest in giving students who come to campus
Speaker 2: perhaps not with a set of values or ideas or philosophy,
Speaker 2: but if you only expose them to professors of one
Speaker 2: point of view, you're not I don't think providing a
Speaker 2: balanced education whatsoever. And there's also quotes on many college
Speaker 2: campuses these days. They want to get to every want
Speaker 2: to get rid of everything, whether it's you know, historic history,
Speaker 2: you know how how the country in which they were
Speaker 2: born came to be. They want to get rid of Shakespeare,
Speaker 2: they want to get rid of Western thought. There's there's
Speaker 2: there's a war on on traditional culture on many university campuses,
Speaker 2: and we see what happened this last year, particularly in
Speaker 2: the wake of the brutal attack on Israel on October seventh,
Speaker 2: and the fallout from that which is now resultant in
Speaker 2: the resignation of the president of Harvard, the president m I.
Speaker 2: T the president of the University of Pennsylvania. It's it
Speaker 2: was a long time coming, wasn't it.
Speaker 6: There's something that we can count on that when we've
Speaker 6: got people who don't understand the American story, and that's
Speaker 6: not a story that's without laws and without failings, but
Speaker 6: when they don't understand the principles and the promise of America,
Speaker 6: they will take it lightly. There's a survey done by
Speaker 6: the World World Value Survey showed that barely thirty percent
Speaker 6: of Americans born before or born since nineteen eighty think
Speaker 6: it essential to live in a country that's governed democratically.
Speaker 6: And even more frightening you probably saw the polls, less
Speaker 6: than fifty percent of the young people say that if
Speaker 6: America were invaded by Russia that they would stay and
Speaker 6: fight as opposed to flee. Well, this is the failing
Speaker 6: of education and what we want to do at ACTA
Speaker 6: is to make sure that our college grads have a
Speaker 6: strong foundation in understanding the documents, the key points in
Speaker 6: our history, and are able to be engaged intelligent citizens
Speaker 6: in our society. We were born in this country. It's
Speaker 6: in our dna in debate and discourse and forming that
Speaker 6: more perfect union through openness and arguing with one another.
Speaker 6: And these are the things that are precisely lacking on
Speaker 6: so many college campuses. And one way to get at
Speaker 6: this is to go back and understand what our birthright is.
Speaker 6: I'm not for a moment saying that we shouldn't be
Speaker 6: critical of the places where we've had flaws. God men
Speaker 6: dine every flaw. But to take such a dismissive attitude
Speaker 6: and ignorance is appalling and it's malfeasance on the part
Speaker 6: of college governance not to do something about it.
Speaker 2: Well, I wish you the best. By the way, I misspoke,
Speaker 2: the MIT president, Sally Cornbolloth, has not resigned. It was
Speaker 2: the Columbia University president who resigned a few days ago.
Speaker 2: So Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard have all lost presidents
Speaker 2: in the fallout the political faull that begin last fall
Speaker 2: with a brutal attack by Hamas on the Israeli settlers
Speaker 2: on our cover seventh. How can folks get more information
Speaker 2: Michael about this effort. There has to be an easy
Speaker 2: website that folks can go to. I have a lot
Speaker 2: of people I know who are going to want to
Speaker 2: get this information because the launch of this organization is
Speaker 2: not going to be highlighted on any of the main
Speaker 2: evening newscast ABC, NBC or CBS. Trust me on that.
Speaker 6: I am afraid that patriotism is something that has been
Speaker 6: so badly scorned. Patriotism is not blind chauvinism. Patriotism means
Speaker 6: we have a basic, basic obligation to make our country
Speaker 6: better all the time, continuous improvement. Anyone can go to
Speaker 6: www dot go acta, Goo acta dot org and write
Speaker 6: off homepage. There's information about the new commission and we'll
Speaker 6: be working on this right away. Its success that we
Speaker 6: want to give to this country that we love so much.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Michael for what you do. And it's
Speaker 2: simply go actor so it's gooacta dot org. Michael Roikoff,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for what you do. I'll have
Speaker 2: you back somenight for a longer conversation and maybe we'll
Speaker 2: incorporate during a full hour phone calls from listeners. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you listen to WBZ, but you can
Speaker 2: flip me on any night ten thirty on the AM
Speaker 2: dial Monday through Friday night. And I think you will
Speaker 2: enjoy what you will hear on this program.
Speaker 3: I know I will.
Speaker 1: Dan, thank you for the opportunity to be with you.
Speaker 6: It's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 2: We'll have you back. Thanks so much. When we get back,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about a really inspirational story. A
Speaker 2: man who's a cancer survivor. It's a retyree, but he
Speaker 2: inspires younger people to manufacture guitarists at a local community college.
Speaker 2: We'll have that story. It's fascinating story with Mark Bulldock,
Speaker 2: the retire informer student himself coming back on Nightside right
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World,
Speaker 1: Light Side Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm not a music expert, and I certainly would
Speaker 2: never try to build a musical instrument, but I'm delighted
Speaker 2: to be joined by Quinn Sigamund Community College. Well, he
Speaker 2: was a student and I believe now a graduate and
Speaker 2: he helps students. He's had a long and winding path.
Speaker 2: Let me put it like that. I think there was
Speaker 2: a song about long and winding paths. So we'll use
Speaker 2: that as a segue and introduced you to Mark Buldock. Hey, Mark,
Speaker 2: welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 6: Hi?
Speaker 4: Hi Dan, I'm great, I'm great. How are you? Thanks
Speaker 4: for having me, My pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Now you have had a what we would call a
Speaker 2: non traditional acad career. As I understand that you, uh, you,
Speaker 2: you now work at Quinsigamund Community College and you're the
Speaker 2: manager of a program. To tell us what you're doing now,
Speaker 2: and then we'll go back and we'll we'll begin at
Speaker 2: the beginning.
Speaker 4: Sure, sure, So about two years ago, I was looking
Speaker 4: for something to do to further my education. I love
Speaker 4: technology and I like going to work. Retirement wasn't especially
Speaker 4: after COVID. I was really stuck in a place of oh,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I just I didn't like retirement. I
Speaker 4: felt isolated.
Speaker 2: What did you What did you retire from? Mark? If
Speaker 2: I could ask, what, what was your career?
Speaker 4: I was, Yeah, I was. I was in information technology.
Speaker 4: I got involved with computers.
Speaker 2: That's a good field. Mark, that's a heck of a
Speaker 2: good field. Yeah. So did you go to school?
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 2: Did you go to school? Did you go to school for.
Speaker 4: That or I did? I did. I went to clock
Speaker 4: University for Back then, it was called the Microsoft Certified
Speaker 4: Engineering Systems Engineer Program, and that is right after that's
Speaker 4: that's right after Windows three dot one, before any type
Speaker 4: of networking wow, uh Windows NT that was the Yeah,
Speaker 4: of course back ages. So I had it on the
Speaker 4: ground level. And I at that time I had been
Speaker 4: with the same company for eighteen years, and computers were
Speaker 4: starting to become part of with their products. So I
Speaker 4: eventually I took a buyout and I started my own company.
Speaker 4: And then I landed a job with one of my clients,
Speaker 4: and I was there until I got sick. For almost
Speaker 4: almost seventeen years.
Speaker 2: You were dealing with cancer, as I understand it correct.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was diagnosed with first with prostate cancer stage three,
Speaker 4: and when I went to get a second opinion looking
Speaker 4: at it, I was only fifty three, so I was
Speaker 4: looking at all the different possible solutions or treatments. They
Speaker 4: wanted to do surgery right away, but I wanted to
Speaker 4: take a look at some of the others, and I
Speaker 4: stumbled across an experimental surgery called the highly Focused Intensive Ultrasound.
Speaker 4: It was not FDA approved and experimental at the time,
Speaker 4: but I was. I thought it was my best option
Speaker 4: and I was willing to roll the dice. And as
Speaker 4: I was going down the path, they discovered I had
Speaker 4: colon cancer too, a much more complicated case of there.
Speaker 2: But I don't want to dwell on that because obviously
Speaker 2: that is now in your rearview mirror. Thank god, you
Speaker 2: drive that and.
Speaker 4: Then you decide my career short.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cut your career short short, no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: But then you've gone on to this other career where
Speaker 2: you now work at Quinsigamund Community College, which is a
Speaker 2: great school in Worcester, very familiar with it, and you
Speaker 2: teach kids how to make how to produce.
Speaker 7: Guitars correct or actually and whatever their project of choices.
Speaker 7: I've worked with a number of students there on. This
Speaker 7: machine is a CNC machine. They have several different flavors
Speaker 7: of CNC, which is the programming language that sends us
Speaker 7: instructions to either a laser or a mill or a
Speaker 7: lais or a router or A spindle is which is
Speaker 7: the machine I use the most, and that is primarily
Speaker 7: for wood. The other machines are for a variety of
Speaker 7: other materials, from stainless steel to aluminum.
Speaker 4: Brass and the like. But so the machine that I
Speaker 4: went to school for, I went actually I started that
Speaker 4: when I was saying, I bought a kit guitar let
Speaker 4: me back teddle a minute, uh so to build because
Speaker 4: I was stuck at home for six months and I
Speaker 4: either worked or built models, and I bought I bought
Speaker 4: a guitar kit and assembled that and I said, Wow,
Speaker 4: this is fun. And when I was looking for something
Speaker 4: to do, I had this idea from the get go
Speaker 4: to try to help other people that are sick. I
Speaker 4: stole that from the who they had put together awards
Speaker 4: for teens with cancer that had like all the recording
Speaker 4: gear and all the instruments and we only have a.
Speaker 2: We only have a minute left. So the bottom line
Speaker 2: is you now are working with students at quinsigamund correct.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not sure if you're working as a
Speaker 2: volunteer or hopefully you're working as a as another path
Speaker 2: in your career, and you're teaching these kids how to
Speaker 2: make musical instruments and other things, how to how to
Speaker 2: musical instruments.
Speaker 4: Wow, whatever their idea is, we work together on that.
Speaker 4: And yes, I'm an employee right now, part time employee.
Speaker 4: I work with another gentleman there.
Speaker 5: I know you're not technically, I.
Speaker 2: Know that technically, I don't think you're a professor, but
Speaker 2: I'll tell you. But however, you are, in point of fact,
Speaker 2: doing the work of a professor at a school. Seriously,
Speaker 2: they should be calling your professor. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 2: This is an inspiring story. Mark and I run out
Speaker 2: of time, unfortunately, and we could probably talk a lot longer,
Speaker 2: but uh, congratulations on fighting the good fight at beating
Speaker 2: cancer and bouncing back. Your resilience and your passion are amazing.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot to me. Dan.
Speaker 4: I have to say, I feel like I was always optimistic.
Speaker 4: I always look toward the future, no matter what the
Speaker 4: what was, I was looking against them. And I'm grateful
Speaker 4: to be here. I'm grateful for the opportunities that I've
Speaker 4: been presented.
Speaker 2: And those students are pretty I'm sure pretty grateful to
Speaker 2: have you on campus.
Speaker 4: Oh it's fun, have a good time.
Speaker 3: With it.
Speaker 2: Mark, thank you so much. Okay, you know I appreciate this. This,
Speaker 2: this will be posted. Your students can listen to this.
Speaker 2: They can go to Nightside and Demand and they can
Speaker 2: listen to this entire interview. It'll be posted tomorrow in
Speaker 2: podcast form at Nightside on Demand dot com. So I
Speaker 2: hope you hope they enjoyed as much as I have.
Speaker 4: Thanks Mark, Okay, Dan, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Talk to you soon we get back. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about a story in the Globe today which caught
Speaker 2: my eye. I'm a dog lover, as I think you know,
Speaker 2: and I think people should be able to bring their
Speaker 2: dogs to outdoor restaurants in Austin, and we'll explain the
Speaker 2: whole story. And later on we're going to get to
Speaker 2: a big change in the presidential race and it's not
Speaker 2: happening in Chicago. I will explain. Robert F. Kennedy Junior
Speaker 2: may be endorsing Donald Trump before week's end.