Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston News Radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Nicole, as we start a Tuesday
Speaker 2: night edition of Nightside. Step in a little bit of
Speaker 2: a technical issue here, which I'm sure we will be
Speaker 2: able to clear up at some point, but welcome on
Speaker 2: in everybody. Nonetheless, we fly this plane on whatever number
Speaker 2: of engines we have at any given time. Let me
Speaker 2: tell you, welcome everybody. My name's Dan Ray, as Nicole indicated,
Speaker 2: the host of the program, and Rob Brooks is back
Speaker 2: in the control room at Broadcast Central, all set to
Speaker 2: begin our conversation tonight. I will tell you that later
Speaker 2: on this evening we are going to talk about the
Speaker 2: effort to put offshore wind off the coast of New England.
Speaker 2: We're going to be talking with Dustin Delano of the
Speaker 2: New England Fisherman Stewart Steward Ship Association. That's at nine o'clock.
Speaker 2: And then later on tonight we'll talk about tackling the
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving Turkey dinner and the conversations that may or may
Speaker 2: not occur around the family gathering, the annual family gathering.
Speaker 2: I think we can try. I think we can try
Speaker 2: to have decent conversations with each other. Call me an optimist,
Speaker 2: but we'll try. First off, we're going to have a
Speaker 2: great conversation with a gentleman by the name of Charles Row.
Speaker 2: This was suggested to me by one of our listeners
Speaker 2: in South Carolina. Pete in South Carolina said, have you
Speaker 2: ever done anything on Lionel trains? And we haven't, so,
Speaker 2: of course we're approaching the Hanukah and the Christmas season
Speaker 2: and many people are train officionados, and I'm told that
Speaker 2: Charles Row, of a company right here in Massachusetts, is
Speaker 2: really ground zero for Lionel trains and people who are
Speaker 2: interested in that. Charles, welcome to night, said how are you, sir.
Speaker 3: I'm very good, Thank you Dan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: So all of us, all us vintage, remember lilying on
Speaker 2: the trains as we were kids, and have they gone
Speaker 2: out of style or it sounds to me based upon
Speaker 2: with my pal Pete in South Carolina tells me there's
Speaker 2: still a lot of people who love the idea of
Speaker 2: a train set, an actual train set that's different from
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that we see, the plastic sets
Speaker 2: or the wooden sets. These are trains that actually run
Speaker 2: on tracks. And I looked at your website tonight. It's
Speaker 2: an amazing it's an amazing experience. It brought me back
Speaker 2: to Christmases of long time ago. Tell us about it.
Speaker 3: You know, Christmas, you know, the tradition of Christmas is
Speaker 3: always about a train. I mean, people have trains around
Speaker 3: the trees for many, many years, and it's still popular today.
Speaker 3: I mean, what more could you see. You walk into
Speaker 3: a room and you see the beautiful Christmas tree and
Speaker 3: you see a train running around it. It just brings
Speaker 3: everything to life. And it's been like that for years,
Speaker 3: and there's many, many, many people who still put the
Speaker 3: trains around the tree. Line now sells thousands of train
Speaker 3: sets every year, so it keeps going and going, you know,
Speaker 3: since since we were kids.
Speaker 2: So how is it possible for someone who wants to
Speaker 2: rekindle that spirit and that joy that trains seem to bring.
Speaker 2: I mean, describe the train. A lot of people think
Speaker 2: about trains and they got little wooden trains which are lovely,
Speaker 2: or plastic trains or whatever. But these are real. They
Speaker 2: look like trains. They're they're there, there's made of steel,
Speaker 2: they're heavy, they run on tracks, they have whistles. Just
Speaker 2: explain to the audience who's never seen a Lionel train exactly.
Speaker 3: What it like, what it sees when we when we
Speaker 3: were kids many years ago, a lot of kids had
Speaker 3: trains that would you know, they run like you say,
Speaker 3: they run on tracks. You plug them into the wall
Speaker 3: and they go around on tracks. Like years ago. Today's
Speaker 3: trains are more modern. They make a lot more noise,
Speaker 3: better smoke, there's a lot more for the kids that
Speaker 3: there's even a little hand controlled that they can use
Speaker 3: to control the trains. There's you can run them from
Speaker 3: your iPhone now. So they've made great you know, they've
Speaker 3: kept up with technology. You know, when we were kids,
Speaker 3: we would just turn to trans farmer on or go
Speaker 3: around the train and we get all excited. And the
Speaker 3: smell of the smoke, now they got smoked that smells
Speaker 3: like pine trees and trains run around and talking and
Speaker 3: you know, all aboard the train, says the kids get
Speaker 3: all excited. And of course you have Pole Express the
Speaker 3: great movie, and they Lionel makes a Pole Express train.
Speaker 3: So that's the most part. That's how most popular set.
Speaker 2: Okay, So so the question that I have and you
Speaker 2: can you can be you in general, don't give me
Speaker 2: a specific answer, but how much of an investment? And look,
Speaker 2: if they go to your website, they'll see these magnificent trains.
Speaker 2: You must have mounted some sort of a camera on
Speaker 2: the front of the train so it shows it from
Speaker 2: the perspective of the train going through tunnels and pass trees,
Speaker 2: and you know, just it's it's it's it allows your
Speaker 2: imagination to run wild. But how much does a family
Speaker 2: have to spend to you know, sort of get a
Speaker 2: good starter. You know, you're not going to get the
Speaker 2: first you know, they're not going to build in their
Speaker 2: basement or or in wherever a magnificent set like you
Speaker 2: that you have. But what are you talking about in
Speaker 2: terms of a financial commitment to start.
Speaker 3: Three or four hundred dollars you can buy a beautiful
Speaker 3: Lionel set or the last years it's just like when yeah,
Speaker 3: it's awesome, it's it's really a bogain. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think to spend that kind of money and have a
Speaker 3: tradition that you can run for many years, I think
Speaker 3: I think it's a good deal.
Speaker 2: Now folks have to have is it advisable to have
Speaker 2: them on a table so that you know, a sturdy,
Speaker 2: solid table. You know, maybe with a green tablecloth or
Speaker 2: something like that, or can you just also just put
Speaker 2: them on the floor and let them run on the carpets.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you you have to have the tracks,
Speaker 2: but I assume that they're better on a table and
Speaker 2: a solid uh sound no line.
Speaker 3: Linel's gone to what they call fast track and it
Speaker 3: snaps together so it's sturdy, it stays together. You could
Speaker 3: put on a hot wood floor. You could put it
Speaker 3: on a carpet and stay together when you when you
Speaker 3: put when you put on a table or something, that's
Speaker 3: well for the hobbyist, you know, that's like.
Speaker 2: Face, that's maybe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe your child's interested in the trains. So okay,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm gonna put in the board. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna put out in the garage or down the basement.
Speaker 3: We'll do a little four by eight. We could put
Speaker 3: some mountains and you know, think some gates that go
Speaker 3: up and down and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Right, So the more complicated that you that you want
Speaker 2: to make it, you can make it. Okay, Where are
Speaker 2: you guys located? Whereabouts in You're in Massachusetts right, we're.
Speaker 3: In We're in Maldon, four miles north of Boston.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know Maledon apps absolutely and you you have
Speaker 2: the retail store in Maldon as well. I mean, or
Speaker 2: do they do it now? Now?
Speaker 3: We have a we have a we have a retail
Speaker 3: store where people can come in. We have our operating
Speaker 3: layout which is sixteen by thirty two, runs six trains
Speaker 3: at once and multiple size of size of trains. Or
Speaker 3: they can do mail order. We could ship it to them.
Speaker 3: They'll they'll have it within a reasonable amount of time,
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of days, three or four.
Speaker 2: Days, so well in time for Christmas. Okay, absolutely, Look
Speaker 2: how many how many how long you've been in business?
Speaker 3: Fifty two years? It's nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: Fifty two years, and you probably over that time have
Speaker 2: sold Do you just sell Lionel trains or there are
Speaker 2: other competitive trains? I always think of Lionel. Are there other.
Speaker 3: Products all Linel? Yes, Lionel is the big name and trains,
Speaker 3: of course, because they've been around for one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty five years, the one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary
Speaker 3: coming up this year. But we do sell h O
Speaker 3: which is a smaller trains, or we do the train
Speaker 3: that got what they call Godden Train g Skill, which
Speaker 3: is even bigger than Lionel, and we also manufacture that
Speaker 3: also inside our facility. Plus we manufactured in China also.
Speaker 2: Okay, well we'll leave that aside selling China. If you
Speaker 2: want to do the man, I'd rather have your manufacturer here,
Speaker 2: Charles Row looks. I appreciate your call very much. Uh
Speaker 2: and I hope that some of our listeners will go
Speaker 2: to you whiz give us the website so that people
Speaker 2: might want to maybe that some people don't even know
Speaker 2: what we're talking about. But what's the website? Charles?
Speaker 3: W w W don't need that.
Speaker 2: Anymore, Charles, You never need the everybody's go ahead, Charles,
Speaker 2: go ahead.
Speaker 3: Charles, Charles Row, and that's r row dot com.
Speaker 2: They couldn't be they couldn't be easier. I knew that
Speaker 2: wasn't what it was, but I wanted you to say it,
Speaker 2: Charles Row.
Speaker 3: And Row is our row, simple.
Speaker 2: Yep, I got it. Yeah, believe me. You know that's fine.
Speaker 2: That works great, Charles, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: All right, we help. We hope to see you in
Speaker 3: the store in a few days.
Speaker 2: You might not be surprised if I was in the
Speaker 2: store in a few days. Trust me, I have a
Speaker 2: coming in Okay, well, I sure will. Child's pleasure to
Speaker 2: pleasure to talk with you. And again a big shout
Speaker 2: out to your your customer and and our listener Pete
Speaker 2: in South Carolina, Pete D as we call him in
Speaker 2: South Carolina.
Speaker 4: Thanks John having me on having you have a good evening.
Speaker 2: My pleasure. Thank you. All right, I enjoyed that. That
Speaker 2: was fun. When we get back, we're I talk about
Speaker 2: something not so much fun, and that is why has
Speaker 2: the US gotten so dry so fast? And what could
Speaker 2: reverse it. We're gonna be talking with a Washington Post
Speaker 2: meteorologist who tonight joins us from off All Places, New Zealand.
Speaker 2: We'll get to that part of the story and the
Speaker 2: big story and other topics coming up. We're gonna talk
Speaker 2: about World's AIDS Day, which is coming up on December first,
Speaker 2: and also of course the big travel day in advance
Speaker 2: of Thanksgiving, with a Jillian Young of Triple A Northeast.
Speaker 2: We got a lot to cover, and then we get
Speaker 2: to the to the nine o'clock hour and topics and
Speaker 2: issues and uh, stay with us. We're gonna have a
Speaker 2: great night tonight on Night Side.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray Mine from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, I think all of us in New England know
Speaker 2: that we're in a drought. We've seen the fires here
Speaker 2: in New England, which we normally don't have. We generally
Speaker 2: have some, but it has been a very different falls.
Speaker 2: We are now passed halfway past the month of November,
Speaker 2: which is incredible with us. Is Ben No, meteorologist with
Speaker 2: the Washington Post, who tonight is in New Zealand? Then
Speaker 2: what the heck you doing down in New Zealand?
Speaker 5: Hi, Danny, thanks for having me tonight. I am calling
Speaker 5: for about nine thousand miles away in New Zealand. Actually
Speaker 5: have lived down here for the last nine years, but
Speaker 5: recently took up a new job with the Post as
Speaker 5: a meteorologist within their newsroom. So I'm transitioning back to
Speaker 5: the States right now. It's actually a beautiful late late
Speaker 5: spring day here in New Zealand. We have the opposite
Speaker 5: seasons to the Northern Hemisphere, so it's dry, much like
Speaker 5: you guys have it right now in New England. It's
Speaker 5: dry down here.
Speaker 2: Too, So you selling here in American originally, I mean,
Speaker 2: where'd you grow up. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I grew up in New York State, about
Speaker 5: an hour north of New York City in the Lower
Speaker 5: Hudson Valley. Went to school in New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how'd you get to New Zealand? I'm going off
Speaker 2: beat here, but I just have always fascinated and no
Speaker 2: relation I assumed to the great Chuck Noll, the coach
Speaker 2: of the Steelers for many years.
Speaker 5: Right, no relation to Chuck Nol though my family does
Speaker 5: kind of hail from Pennsylvania, so maybe there's some distant
Speaker 5: connection there that I'm unaware of. I went to I
Speaker 5: worked at Akiweather for a couple of years in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: Then a job offer came up in New Zealand. I
Speaker 5: was in my twenties. I'm like, well, you know, if
Speaker 5: you're ever going to travel and see the world, now
Speaker 5: is the time to do it. And yeah, it was
Speaker 5: a great choice at that time of my life. Beautiful country.
Speaker 5: If anyone in New England is looking for a vacation spot,
Speaker 5: highly recommended, friendly people, nice coffee, pretty good food too.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 2: You know, I wish that I knew you back then
Speaker 2: because Scott Brown, former Cenator from Massachusetts and a longtime
Speaker 2: friend of mine, was our US ambassador to New Zealand,
Speaker 2: and I almost went down there for a visit. But
Speaker 2: let's talk weather. What's going on here. I know that
Speaker 2: you know a lot about more weather, a lot more
Speaker 2: about weather than I do. This is a problem for us,
Speaker 2: but I guess in other parts of the world. Reading
Speaker 2: your most recent piece, I think in the post suggested
Speaker 2: that there's parts of the world that did have drenched
Speaker 2: at this point. You think of the floods in Spain
Speaker 2: and elsewhere. Tell us, is this just part of a
Speaker 2: normal cycle or is it something more pernicious than that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's been an interesting one, Dan, I mean, we've
Speaker 5: watched this pattern over the last i'd say a couple
Speaker 5: of years toward what I describe as actually global moistening.
Speaker 5: You know, we hear about global warming and the warming
Speaker 5: trend toward warmer temperatures across the globe. Well, part and
Speaker 5: parcel with the warming world is an atmosphere that can
Speaker 5: hold more water vapor. And we've seen from several very
Speaker 5: impactful storms, whether it was the hurricanes like Helene and Milton,
Speaker 5: the recent floods in Spain, there's been kind of a
Speaker 5: litany of flooding rain events across the planet, and they
Speaker 5: have probably outnumbered the parts of the planet that have
Speaker 5: been experiencing dryness and drought. However, the US has been
Speaker 5: probably one of the few standouts for being really dry
Speaker 5: and widespread dryness across the planet as a whole. And
Speaker 5: we've actually seen about eighty seven percent of the United
Speaker 5: States experience abnormally dry conditions here in the month of November,
Speaker 5: and that is the highest number on record since such
Speaker 5: records began back in the year two thousands. So you've
Speaker 5: certainly felt that in New England, but it's been widespread
Speaker 5: across the United States, kind of bucking that trend toward
Speaker 5: internationally conditions that are actually very wet.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what normally would be the if the figure
Speaker 2: is eighty seven percent dry, I'm assuming that we're never
Speaker 2: one hundred percent perfect normally in a normal November, what
Speaker 2: would that figure.
Speaker 5: Be if you know, yeah, looking back, I mean it
Speaker 5: ebbs and flows, but I mean I look back to
Speaker 5: you know, say, November of twenty twenty three, and you know,
Speaker 5: you'd be looking at conditions that are more you know,
Speaker 5: closer to fifty percent sixty percent kind of in that ballpark.
Speaker 5: So to have you know eighty seven percent. That that's
Speaker 5: a record for all months, not just November. That's the
Speaker 5: highest number that that that drought index has seen, so
Speaker 5: it is it is pretty pretty pretty notable, I'd say
Speaker 5: from a record keeping perspective.
Speaker 2: Notable and obviously very anomalous, which which is another concern.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the year, will it kind
Speaker 2: of even out? I know, we had a fairly wet
Speaker 2: spring of at least here in New England, and my
Speaker 2: focus is on New England obviously, is it going to
Speaker 2: even out by the end of the year. We have
Speaker 2: some rain coming in here according to our weather forecasters,
Speaker 2: fairly significant rain Wednesday into Thursday, maybe even into Friday.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you probably gave a peek at the forecast.
Speaker 2: Will it? Will it? You know, will it? Do you
Speaker 2: think even out towards the end of the year, maybe
Speaker 2: get us close to normality or are we looking at
Speaker 2: something that that's really going to be a problem that
Speaker 2: you think is going to continue going forward?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we've seen deficits across Massachusetts as high
Speaker 5: as eight or more inches across parts of the state.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm looking on the eastern flank of the
Speaker 5: state toward the cape, I mean places there eight to
Speaker 5: ten plus inches in deficit, and then out towards the
Speaker 5: Berkshires as well, eight to ten inches in deficits. So
Speaker 5: these are these are pretty significant rainfall deficits. When you're
Speaker 5: talking about you know, a magnitude of that high, that's
Speaker 5: two to three, you know, months worth of rain that
Speaker 5: you're you're needing to kind of make up. Now, you know,
Speaker 5: you do have that rain event coming in on Thursday,
Speaker 5: and that looks to bring maybe about an inch of
Speaker 5: rain give or take to the state. You know, some
Speaker 5: areas higher, some areas maybe a little bit lower. You know,
Speaker 5: that'll help. But you know, when you're talking about deficits
Speaker 5: that are you know, eight to ten times that amount,
Speaker 5: it's going to take some time. So you know, I
Speaker 5: think at this point we are seeing that pattern of
Speaker 5: dryness start to ease back a little bit. That's the
Speaker 5: good news. And I suspect there will be some more
Speaker 5: storm systems to come as we enter December that will
Speaker 5: bring some beneficial rain. But what you don't want is
Speaker 5: a whole heap or rain in a short period of time.
Speaker 5: You know, we all love pumpkin pion Thanksgiving, but you
Speaker 5: eat too much of it. You know, you come away
Speaker 5: with a stomach ache the next morning. Same ghoast for rain.
Speaker 5: You don't want too much rain in one big storm
Speaker 5: because that'll lead to flooding and the opposite problem. So
Speaker 5: we want kind of gentler, sustained rainfall that's going to
Speaker 5: bring you back. And we'll make a stride in that
Speaker 5: direction here on Thursday, but indeed we will, we will
Speaker 5: definitely need more to break through this drought.
Speaker 2: Well, Ben, it was a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Learned a lot. I really mean that. Honestly, you seem
Speaker 2: like a rock solid guy. The Washington Post love to
Speaker 2: use you more often, particularly when you get back here
Speaker 2: to the East coast of America. We could check in
Speaker 2: with you sometime. How soon will you be back? Will you,
Speaker 2: you know, take up residents in the DC area?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, as you can imagine, it's a quite a journey,
Speaker 5: and it's quite a process, so, you know, selling a house, relocating,
Speaker 5: getting you know, my feet on the ground there probably
Speaker 5: next year, twenty twenty five is what I'm aiming for.
Speaker 5: But it was great to be on with you tonight, Dan,
Speaker 5: And yeah, I look forward to touching base in the
Speaker 5: future and hoping for an easy transition into winter and
Speaker 5: exactly the right amount of rain for your listeners there
Speaker 5: in the Boston area.
Speaker 2: Ben no of the Washington Post meteorologists of the Washington Post,
Speaker 2: thanks very much. I appreciate your time and hope you
Speaker 2: have a great Thanksgiving. I don't know if they celebrate
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving down in New Zealand, but maybe you'll find some
Speaker 2: Americans to celebrate it with.
Speaker 5: Okay, thanks Dan, I'll be heading to Taco bell as
Speaker 5: all Americans do here in New Zealand on that big day.
Speaker 2: It's the tradition Thanksgiving then. Okay, I think the Pilgrims
Speaker 2: did that too. Actually, hey, Ben, thanks very much. Talk
Speaker 2: to you soon. Yeah, okay, we're going to thanks thanks Ben,
Speaker 2: Ben Knowell of the Washington Post in New Zealand. And
Speaker 2: now after the news at the bottom of the hour,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about the fact that eighty million
Speaker 2: Americans we'll be traveling over this Thanksgiving holiday, which of
Speaker 2: course is now a little more than a week away.
Speaker 2: Jillian Young, director of public relations for tripa A Northeast,
Speaker 2: will be with us. We'll talk with her, and later
Speaker 2: on during this hour we'll talk about World Aid's Day
Speaker 2: coming up on December first, my name is Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: Listen to WBZ Boston's News Radio ten thirty on your
Speaker 2: AM dial, and of course you also more than welcome
Speaker 2: to download the iHeart Radio app. Just go to your
Speaker 2: app store and get the iHeart Radio app and you
Speaker 2: can listen to WBZ and iHeart stations across the country
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five days a day a year
Speaker 2: and twenty four seven Back on Nightside right after the
Speaker 2: news at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
Speaker 1: News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back everyone. Well, of course, as I
Speaker 2: think all of us know, one of the busiest travel
Speaker 2: days of any year, and maybe this one is going
Speaker 2: to be Thanksgiving with us is Julian Young, director of
Speaker 2: public relations for TRIPAA Northeast. Julian, the figure is eighty
Speaker 2: million Americans expected to travel over Thanksgiving. What do they
Speaker 2: mean by that? Not eighty million Americans on airplanes? What
Speaker 2: is the is it if you travel more than fifty
Speaker 2: miles you get counted into this number of eighty million.
Speaker 7: It's a great question, Dan, so yes, the projection of
Speaker 7: nearly eighty million travelers. Is anyone who is heading fifty
Speaker 7: miles or more from their homes over the Thanksgiving qualiday period.
Speaker 7: So those are folks who are traveling by car, some
Speaker 7: are going to travel by air, and then we're also
Speaker 7: factoring other forms of transportation like trains, buses, and even crewies.
Speaker 2: Okay, now, how does that breakdown? I know that one
Speaker 2: of the things you always hear is that the Wednesday
Speaker 2: before Thanksgiving is our busiest travel day of the year
Speaker 2: or something like that. How does this break down? Does
Speaker 2: does it count like eighty million people go somewhere and
Speaker 2: then the same eighty million people come back or is
Speaker 2: it forty million people go and then forty million trips back.
Speaker 2: I always get confused by that number.
Speaker 7: So it's eighty million travelers total. So that's the total
Speaker 7: number of people who are going to take trips. And
Speaker 7: you mentioned Wednesday as the busiest day, and that is
Speaker 7: certainly what we used to see. I think anyone who
Speaker 7: has tried to get on the road the Wednesday before
Speaker 7: Thanksgiving us in some pretty frustrating traffic. But what we've
Speaker 7: seen over time, especially in the past few years coming
Speaker 7: out of the pandemic, is that the traffic patterns and
Speaker 7: the travel patterns have shifted a little bit, and we're
Speaker 7: now looking at also the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the
Speaker 7: Monday after the holiday as among the busiest travel days
Speaker 7: in that travel period.
Speaker 2: So that sounds to me like the Thanksgiving weekend, like
Speaker 2: most of our wastelines on Thanksgiving, is it.
Speaker 7: Has expanded. Yeah, we've seen those. We've seen those travel
Speaker 7: patterns expand over the last couple of years, partially because
Speaker 7: people might have some more flexibility with work. They might
Speaker 7: have the chance to travel on a Monday or Tuesday
Speaker 7: and work remotely and not have to pack their travel
Speaker 7: into that day before the holiday and the Sunday after
Speaker 7: when it used to be that everyone was really traveling
Speaker 7: on those days.
Speaker 2: How does this compare Obviously, in the last few years,
Speaker 2: you know, with twenty and twenty one, the COVID pandemic
Speaker 2: was at its height, and a lot of people stayed
Speaker 2: close and there was probably less less big family dinners
Speaker 2: and people were isolated and all of that, and then
Speaker 2: the economy and COVID sort of has diminished. It's still there,
Speaker 2: but it's diminished, and the travel picked up a little
Speaker 2: bit in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three. How
Speaker 2: does this Thanksgiving compare to maybe the Thanksgiving before COVID,
Speaker 2: which would have been Thanksgiving of twenty nineteen, because that
Speaker 2: seems to me to be the only two recent Thanksgivings
Speaker 2: that are comparable.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Dan, And when we look at
Speaker 7: the projection for this year compared to twenty nineteen, that
Speaker 7: last Thanksgiving before the pandemic hit, we're looking at a
Speaker 7: projection of two million more travelers this year than in
Speaker 7: twenty nineteen. So we are breaking that pre pandemic record
Speaker 7: or expected to for this year. And it's an increase
Speaker 7: of one point seven million people from last year, so
Speaker 7: we're really on the up if you compare simply to
Speaker 7: last year or to twenty nineteen pre pandemic.
Speaker 2: You know, that's kind of interesting because well, when you
Speaker 2: think about it, our population as a country has I'm
Speaker 2: sure grown substantially from twenty nineteen. That's five years. It
Speaker 2: seems like every year when you hear the pop we
Speaker 2: now have three hundred and twenty million. No, it's three
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty million, And I kind of thought that
Speaker 2: I'm surprised that it was that high back in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: to be honest with you, I mean that's a pretty
Speaker 2: significant number if it was seventy eight million back in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen and we've only grown two million over period
Speaker 2: to five years.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a good point. You know, we haven't looked
Speaker 7: at it against pop like greater population trends, but you've
Speaker 7: sparked an idea, and I think now we might have
Speaker 7: and make that comparison to see how those patterns align
Speaker 7: or don't align. But what we've seen over the years
Speaker 7: is that Thanksgiving has really always been the busiest holiday
Speaker 7: for travel, and we've just seen travel demand really continue
Speaker 7: to store post pandemic, and Thanksgiving is one of those
Speaker 7: holidays where folks are looking to reconnect with family and friends,
Speaker 7: maybe take a fun trip to a new destination, maybe
Speaker 7: do both. And He've got a mix of those kind
Speaker 7: of traditional road trips to family that we might think
Speaker 7: of when we think of Thanksgiving, and also some folks
Speaker 7: who are headed to a warmer destination and getting out
Speaker 7: of dodge just as things get a little chilly around here.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting, and I'm always trying to figure this
Speaker 2: stuff out, but Thanksgiving is on the calendar perfectly situated
Speaker 2: in that most parts of the country are not going
Speaker 2: to be impacted by a big weather event, whereas a
Speaker 2: Christmas our New Year's you can almost count and there'll
Speaker 2: be some parts of the country which will a big
Speaker 2: one the events. So therefore no one has deterred from
Speaker 2: making plans. And as you said, Thanksgiving is a lot
Speaker 2: simpler than Christmas. You get in the car and you go,
Speaker 2: you know, over the river and through the woods to
Speaker 2: grandma's house. Uh and and connect with your high school
Speaker 2: buddies or your high school gal pals, and you can
Speaker 2: do all you know it's and of course family is
Speaker 2: going to want to bring the kids back to see
Speaker 2: the grandparents. It just seems to me that Thanksgiving, which
Speaker 2: is such a great holiday, no pressure about give, gift
Speaker 2: giving or anything like that. Fun family food, football, It's
Speaker 2: all good. You know, throw a couple of extra bottles
Speaker 2: of wine in the car so that you get an invitation,
Speaker 2: last minute invitation. Always bring a bottle of wine. You
Speaker 2: don't have to do a whole lot. I mean, what's
Speaker 2: there not to like about Thanksgiving?
Speaker 7: You're so right, it really is the quintessential travel holiday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, I know you folks are going to
Speaker 2: be keeping up with it. Jillian triple A does a
Speaker 2: great job. I'm a member of Triple A. I pay
Speaker 2: my dues every year, and I want you to know
Speaker 2: that Triple A has bailed me out on several occasions
Speaker 2: with a dead battery or a flat tire. So's it's
Speaker 2: one organization I'm very proud to be a part of
Speaker 2: and I feel that I get my money's worth. And
Speaker 2: I advise anyone to consider becoming a member of Triple A.
Speaker 2: And that's a that's an unpaid promotional announcement. That's one
Speaker 2: that I truly do believe it. I mean that seriously.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you so much for saying that, and I'm
Speaker 7: so glad that we have been able to help you
Speaker 7: in those times when you need it. That is certainly
Speaker 7: one of the great benefits of Triple A membership. I've
Speaker 7: been I've been helped myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No. And they'll they'll almost tell you if they
Speaker 2: say that someone's twenty minutes away, you can take that
Speaker 2: to the bank. If they tell you it's really busy
Speaker 2: and it's going to be two hours, you can take
Speaker 2: that to the bank as well. But they do not
Speaker 2: they do not over promise. They promise accurately and they
Speaker 2: deliver so anyway, I just wanted to say that I
Speaker 2: haven't never had a chance to mention that on the air,
Speaker 2: but it's a I think it's a wise It's one
Speaker 2: of the probably the wisest membership that I've been involved in.
Speaker 2: So thank you very much. We talking again. Happy Thanksgiving, Jillian.
Speaker 7: Happy Thanksgiving to you, Dan. Thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, we come back on to talk about another
Speaker 2: subject which was a huge news story in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: a's and thank god, thank goodness that even though World
Speaker 2: Age Day will come up again on December first every year,
Speaker 2: it seems that the AIDE story about the number of
Speaker 2: people impacted, et cetera, is heading in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Let's put it like that. I be talking with Jeremy Shaefer,
Speaker 2: registered nurse with outer Cape Health Services, right after this
Speaker 2: break on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: On December first, the world will recognize once again World
Speaker 2: Age Day with us as Jeffrey Schaeffer. He's a registered
Speaker 2: nurse with out a Cape Health Services. Jeffrey, in all
Speaker 2: the big stories of recent years, have people started to
Speaker 2: forget about AIDS?
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Dan, I think that I think
Speaker 3: that it's probably a good thing that it is not
Speaker 3: on the forefront of news, and that means that it's
Speaker 3: not what it.
Speaker 4: Was in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 6: So I think I think it's tempered with a little
Speaker 6: bit of good news. That it might not be getting
Speaker 6: the attention, but it's not quite the threat that it
Speaker 6: was back then.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk. Let's just bring people up to
Speaker 2: date here. I assume that you know a lot more
Speaker 2: about this than I do, So I'm gonna ask some questions.
Speaker 2: It might be dumb questions, but feel free to tell
Speaker 2: me that questions or answer whatever that is. Is age
Speaker 2: age as prevalent today amongst you know, we'll just talk
Speaker 2: to the American public. We can talk worldwide, whatever way
Speaker 2: you want to talk about it, and it might be different.
Speaker 2: Is it as prevalent today as it was at its
Speaker 2: height in the late eighties early nineties.
Speaker 6: No, And I mean I'm going to go geographically. You know,
Speaker 6: there are different places, but there's a lot more in
Speaker 6: our toolbox now than there was back then. And so
Speaker 6: back then we only had abstinence either from whatever puts
Speaker 6: you at.
Speaker 2: Risk or.
Speaker 6: Also and condoms, you know, and now we have things like,
Speaker 6: you know, like we test the blood, you know, so
Speaker 6: if you're you know, feliac, you know you're not going
Speaker 6: to get it from the blood supply. You There are
Speaker 6: treat Also, if you're HIV positive and you're on treatment
Speaker 6: and you get down to undetectable, then you cannot transmit it, uh,
Speaker 6: sexually to another human being, so you're not at risk
Speaker 6: of transmitting it. And then there are other biomedical interventions
Speaker 6: either post or pre exposure, you know, to prevent transmission.
Speaker 6: So there's a lot more in our toolbox uh than
Speaker 6: there was back then.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's interesting the term undetectable. Does that mean that? Well,
Speaker 2: let me phrase the question this way. Obviously there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of people are much more careful who, you know,
Speaker 2: engage in certain sexual activities. I suspect because obviously when
Speaker 2: AIDS came, no one knew what it was, no one
Speaker 2: knew where it came from, and people were in a
Speaker 2: total panic. Okay, so the situation age is much more
Speaker 2: controlled at this point. Undetectability could that could could that
Speaker 2: uh sort of provide a resurgence that if people think
Speaker 2: that's undetectable and you can't transmit it. Therefore, maybe people
Speaker 2: allow their guards to drop down. Is there is there
Speaker 2: any potential downside to that in a longer.
Speaker 4: In in the long run, well, it's an interesting question.
Speaker 6: I don't know if there's a downside to not getting
Speaker 6: h I V. I think that if what I'm.
Speaker 2: Saying is that if you if you're undetectable and therefore
Speaker 2: you become you know, more active, does that put you know,
Speaker 2: you know, does that put you again you're in a
Speaker 2: comfort zone, more of a comfortable set of circumstances. That
Speaker 2: that does that put you at at a at a
Speaker 2: risk of being reattected.
Speaker 4: Is what I was trying to get at.
Speaker 6: No, if you're undetectable, you still have it. And so
Speaker 6: there and so in the what they call reservoirs, which
Speaker 6: are you know, basically in the DNA of some of
Speaker 6: the white blood cells, is still the code for HID.
Speaker 6: But if you stop taking your medication, it starts replicating again,
Speaker 6: and so you do get the virus, and so that
Speaker 6: what that does, that keeps it at bay and so
Speaker 6: you you know, if you have a house full of zombies,
Speaker 6: you know, and then you've got locks on the house.
Speaker 6: If you take those locks away.
Speaker 4: And they get out, you know, like there's more.
Speaker 6: But if you get it back in there, they're still
Speaker 6: in there, you know, and they're still ris But what
Speaker 6: what it's doing for you? Let's so being undetectable as
Speaker 6: advantage in two different ways. One of them for the
Speaker 6: person who's living with HIV is that it your body
Speaker 6: is not constantly fighting the virus and so there's less inflammation.
Speaker 6: There's less things that cause you to get other comorbidities
Speaker 6: or other things that might lead to AIDS and being
Speaker 6: sick and getting opportunistic infections if you are. The benefit
Speaker 6: to others is that it's one of the methods of
Speaker 6: prevention is called treatment is prevention, meaning that the more
Speaker 6: people that are on treatment and are undetectable, the less
Speaker 6: chance it is of spreading. And so kind of like
Speaker 6: you know, if you have herpies and you're taking valve cyclopear,
Speaker 6: you know, it keeps it depressed so that you know,
Speaker 6: if you don't get an outbreak and you don't transmit
Speaker 6: it leads.
Speaker 2: How long has undetectability been possible? Is that a relatively
Speaker 2: recent breakthrough?
Speaker 6: I think the I don't know exactly it was coined,
Speaker 6: but more and more studies have shown that it's probably
Speaker 6: been more than ten years that we've known this, and
Speaker 6: probably around the same time. I mean, I can't see exactly,
Speaker 6: but I would say at least ten years or more
Speaker 6: that we've known it for sure because we've done They've
Speaker 6: done studies with couples who are monogamous and who one
Speaker 6: is living with HIV but does not have a viral load.
Speaker 6: The other person is not living with HIV and they're
Speaker 6: not using barrier protection. There's been no transmissions. So that's
Speaker 6: the way that they've proved it.
Speaker 4: And it is Yeah, is.
Speaker 2: There I only got a minute left, as they say
Speaker 2: in anticipation of World Aid's Day. Yeah, is there? Is
Speaker 2: there a hope that this virus can be isolated and eliminated?
Speaker 6: Uh, you know, they're always, you know, looking into different things.
Speaker 6: It's a little bit more difficult than like, you know,
Speaker 6: we've been able to cure HEC, but HIV is still
Speaker 6: elusive because of where it's hidden in the reservoirs. But
Speaker 6: I think that if enough people get you know, there's
Speaker 6: so much stigma about having HIV that you know, it's
Speaker 6: really important to you know, reduce the stigma about having
Speaker 6: it because if you happen to have had, you know,
Speaker 6: gotten it. It's important to get tested either through your
Speaker 6: primary care it's part of primary care now, or at
Speaker 6: a local testing resource, which you can get by just
Speaker 6: doing HIV testing near me. You can find some confidential
Speaker 6: places and there's even some over the counter things that
Speaker 6: you can find, you know, so whatever, Well.
Speaker 2: A lot, a lot, a lot of progress in a
Speaker 2: in a battle that now has been decades against AIDS,
Speaker 2: AIDS HIV. Yeah, thanks very much Jeffrey for your time.
Speaker 2: And what you do is do you want to is
Speaker 2: there a point that you would reference somewhere that people
Speaker 2: can get information easily just google it and I assume
Speaker 2: at this point it's so much so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can. You can google HIV testing near me
Speaker 6: out in Cape cod. You know, there's the program that
Speaker 6: I run tests and treat runs out of our provincetown location,
Speaker 6: and there's other Uh, if you googled HIV testing near me,
Speaker 6: you're going to find some places that are near you
Speaker 6: that can provide confidential testing. And and also yep, no.
Speaker 2: Just saying thank you very much, Jeffrey. We're run up
Speaker 2: against the nine o'clock news. Thank you for the work
Speaker 2: you do and continued success.
Speaker 4: My friend, thanks for having me, Dan, You're very welcome.
Speaker 2: When we get back here on nice side, right after
Speaker 2: nine o'clock news is going to be talking about the
Speaker 2: possibility of offshore wind off the coast of New England,
Speaker 2: and Dustin Delano of the New England fisher and Stewardship
Speaker 2: Association is very much opposed. We'll talk with Dustin right
Speaker 2: after the nine o'clock news on nightside