DayStrider: Tales from a Time Traveler

May 21st: Size Matters Not (nor does gender)

• Truman Pastworthy • Episode 11

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Celebrating May 21st puts you in some very special company!  The amazing creations from this day in history are remarkable - you should make time to check them out: 

  • Long ago, in a galaxy far away, introduced to us - a great Jedi Master was
  • The "Angel of the Battlefield" formed an amazing humanitarian organization
  • The World’s most popular sport has endured some ugly blemishes - hopefully they fade quickly!   

Why not learn a bit about today by listening to some fun, engaging stories?  You’ll find yourself a little smarter and have some great stories you can re-tell!  

Today’s show mentions an iconic movie scene that you gotta see - here's that link, along with a link to a great organization that needs your blood! (these links worked in mid 2024, not sure for how long?):

Gift ideas for folks who celebrate May 21st for any reason:

Text me your favorite time travel movie!!!


~~~ DayStrider Fun ~~~


Do you want to be mentioned here in the podcast? Or do you want me to do a shout-out for a loved one? All you need to do is send me an e-mail: daystriderstories@gmail.com


Better yet, you can record your own shout-out by leaving me a voice message using this SpeakPipe link


Do you have a story that you wish to share? Join me as a guest and let’s tell the world together! Once again, just send me an e-mail or find me here on Facebook: Truman Pastworthy


If you had as much fun listening as I did creating this episode, please click "follow" in your favorite podcast platform . . . oh . . . and even better - why not share it with a friend (or three)! I’m betting you know just the perfect person who would enjoy today’s stories!


If you feel adventurous, how 'bout writing a great review? :-)



Truman:

Welcome, seeker. Your portal is all warmed up and ready to stride through history with me. Together, we'll discover why May 21st is special for the diversity of events that happened on this day. Our journey will take us first to long ago in a galaxy far, far away, to an uninhabited swamp planet in the Dagobah system. Some fun we

Yoda:

will have.

Truman:

And then we'll travel to meet the Angel of the Battlefield. We'll find her in the mid-1860s as the U.S. is engulfed in civil war. After we learn of her remarkable achievements, we will stride to Europe in the early 1900s to discover the humble and noble beginnings of what eventually became the ugliest display of greed and corruption the sports world has ever seen. Time's a-tickin', so let's get to it.

Music:

Music

Truman:

Welcome, seekers, to the enchanting world of Daystrider, the podcast where we embark on a daily journey through history. I'm your travel guide, Truman Pastworthy, and together we'll explore some fascinating stories that happened on this exact day, but from some time in the past. From groundbreaking inventions to remarkable birthdays and extraordinary events to quirky national holidays, we've got it all. So kick back, relax, and open your mind for some lighthearted stories that'll leave you saying, huh, I never knew that happened on this day. Alrighty then, let's get to it. If you were a young person in the late 1970s, like I was, then you were experiencing the viral popularity of Kermit the Frog and the Muppets. You were raised on Sesame Street and were one of literally millions of kids tuning in daily. to learn from Big Bird and the gang. I remember being enamored with the craft of lovable puppet characters who each had their own personalities and traits. To me, they were alive and real. Even though they didn't look like real life, they seemed real. But the little green puppet that showed up for the first time on this day in 1980 was literally, out of this world, incredible. Nope, not Kermit. He'd been around for over 20 years. And nope, not Oscar the Grouch. He'd been on the street for over a decade. I'll give you a hint. Who is the cutest little green alien you've ever seen? Mandalorian? Grogu? That's right, Grogu. For the first season and a half, everyone called Grogu Baby Yoda. Because the show just kept his name a secret. We did not know that he was not Baby Yoda. So if you're older like me or younger like my kids, you've all heard the name Yoda. In fact, I can't imagine anyone not having heard the name Yoda. Well, he showed up on the big screen on May 21st in the blockbuster sequel to Star Wars, and he was an instant classic, even though he was a puppet.

Music:

Hmm.

Truman:

Yoda was a trailblazer, and he became an immortal icon. And his speech pattern and unusual wisdom made him as quotable as any world leader that's ever lived. He fully embodied the concept of don't judge a book by its cover. He even said that himself directly to Luke Skywalker after Luke's ship sank in the swamp. Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I've been quoting Yoda for only 45 years or so. If you haven't watched that scene, I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes. It is definitely worth your time. Watch it. You must. All right. Now here's what's insanely crazy. Yoda came to be because of a series of pure accidents strung together in a cause and effect loop that is really hard to believe. I'll start with this one. Yoda wasn't even in the original Star Wars plans. Seriously, George Lucas had the major plots for all three of those first movies, which actually ended up being the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies, but let's not get into that. My point, there was no Yoda in the Empire Strikes Back movie, or any of those movies. Can you imagine no Yoda? No Jedi Master? Leaving Kermit and Oscar to have their fame as the only green puppets? Come on. Yes, it's true. So George Lucas told us this in an interview a while back. He said that when he was making the original Star Wars movie, the ending just wasn't working for him. And he wanted to intensify the emotions and conflict. So he decided to have old Ben, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, killed by Darth Vader to raise the stakes. Oh, by the way, I'm not going to bother with spoiler alerts here. If you haven't watched these movies or heard all about them by now, well... Anyway, the only person who Luke could learn about the Force from was gone. So George had to come up with something else. All right, let's just work in another character. But he didn't want it to be a human, so he decided to go with an alien named Yoda. All right, here's where we get to accident number two. In George Lucas's mind, the character was going to be played by a monkey wearing a mask and a costume. For real, that was the original plan. They cast an actual monkey. and discovered quickly that that wasn't going to work. So, they ended up making a little green, very old-looking puppet. Now, this puppet was not just a few socks sewn together, nor was it some cardboard mouth with red cloth taped on the inside and colorful fur on the out. No sirree duty. This was a masterfully done super puppet that took two people to control and several people to support. including none other than the grandmaster of all puppetry, Frank Oz, who played Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover, among others. If you don't know those names, you can look them up. Now, here we go, accident number three. George Lucas had plans for who was going to voice over this puppet, but they wanted to get filming right away, so they just let Frank Oz play the part and read the lines. And, of course, Frank, like everything he does, took this job very seriously. And so he had a complete mastery of Yoda's lips and head movements, and basically mic-dropping performances with Yoda's voice. He was so good with this puppet that Mark Hamill, that's the actor who played Luke Skywalker, said he was intimidated at first because of the realistic expressions and masterful puppeteering. And multiple filming crew members remarked at how Oz played that character and stayed in character the whole time, which further enhanced the awesomeness of Yoda's presence. So impressive it was. The voice Oz's must be. Okay, that's not a real Yoda quote, but, you know, his speech pattern was intentional. So George Lucas wanted the Jedi Master to seem wise and inspiring. He literally wanted to force us to listen carefully. Here's a quote for you. If no mistake you have made, losing you are. A different game you should play. Think about that one for a second. Even if you have to go back, hit your 15 second back button. Listen again. I'll wait. Yeah. So basically what they're trying to say with that quote is, mistakes help you learn and grow. So if you aren't making any mistakes, you need to go play a different game or against different opponents. Does that make sense?

Music:

All right.

Truman:

So even if you weren't that much into Star Wars, or if you were a big, huge movie buff, many of you may not know how deeply and impactful Yoda was in the Star Wars canon. which is the collection of sacred Star Wars books and timeline and such. So Yoda was in both of the Clone War animated series. He appeared in the Star Wars Rebels show and in some of the Tales of the Jedi series, along with being in seven of the nine mainstream movies. But not only that, he was the title of a Weird Al song called Yoda, which is a parody of the kink song Lola. So it sings like this, Yoda, Y-O-D-A, Yoda. Okay, I won't hurt your ears any longer with my singing. All right, so I'm going to wrap this up with a reflection on what I said earlier about how Yoda's quotes are as powerful as those of any world leader. So for those of you who have kids or teach kids or coach kids, as part of your role as parent or coach, you've encouraged them to attempt to do something difficult or challenging. And I have no doubt you've heard their response, I'll try. I'll try, coach. I'm willing to bet a dollar that along the way, you've responded to that, do or do not. There is no try. Yeah. Thanks, Yoda. May the force be with you. Roses are red and Yoda is sly. A review you should write, there is no try. Has the dark side filled you with too much fear? Type a fun little pod that you gotta hear. Imagine. You're the head surgeon of the Army of Virginia, and you're currently situated in a town not far from Washington, D.C., and it's August of 1862. The American Civil War is raging all around you, and your army was just defeated by the Confederates in the bloody and deadly Battle of Cedar Mountain. What happened today was dismal. More than a quarter of your 8,000 troops had been slaughtered. and countless more are injured and moaning in pain all over the battlefield. Your team of medical help is stretched thin and your supplies are gone and at this point you're wrapping wounds with corn stalk leaves. It's awful. As dusk settles over the valley, trundling into your camp and coming straight towards your makeshift field hospital is a wagon pulled by a four mule team and loaded with medical supplies. as if from heaven that wagon's driver is none other than clara barton whom you declare and i quote i thought that night if heaven ever sent a angel she must be the one her assistance was so timely essentially your words solidifying clara's newly earned nickname the angel of the battlefield which she had repeatedly earned and reinforced throughout the entirety of that war Now, lucky for you and all the men whose lives were spared that day, Clara is one of the most feisty and tenacious woman in the Americas at that time. That day, she was on official business with the Union Army to deliver those medical supplies. But that wasn't always the case. Just a year earlier, she was acting as the angel, but she was unofficial and a volunteer. You see, in 1861, Women weren't allowed on the battlefield because, you know, they would just get in the way. You know what Clara said to that bunch of malarkey? And I quote, I'm well and strong and young. If I can't be a soldier, I'll help soldiers. And she literally went out on her own, collected donations of medical supplies, and then took them onto numerous battlefields and began helping wounded soldiers without permission or support or authority. Clara's courageous toughness and backbone, that wasn't forged here in the Civil War, no. She had a reputation of being a tough woman and making her way in a man's world for many years. For example, five years earlier, Clara moved to Washington, D.C. and became the first woman to ever work in the U.S. Patent Office. And she demanded equal pay for equal work. And for a while, she was fairly treated. But as things go, the election of a new president brought a change in the leadership and she was reassigned to a lesser role so she couldn't be paid like the men. Really? Yes. So, she packed her bags and moved on. But wait, there's more. A few years before moving to D.C., Clara started a free school in her hometown in New Jersey. And it wasn't long before her classroom was full and teeming with students, all wanting to learn, and the school expanded and grew, and they had to hire more teachers. And of course, it wasn't long before she discovered that the male teachers that were being hired were paid more than she was. Yes, in the very school she started. Can you believe that? And so, she packed her bags and moved on. So you're probably getting the sense that Clara Barton is a force. She was a high-energy and very spirited, driven person, making her the perfect person to be selected by Abraham Lincoln to start the Missing Persons Office after the Civil War ended to help locate missing soldiers. You can probably tell that I'm very impressed with Ms. Clara Barton, right? Well, guess what? I'm not done, and she wasn't either. She was incredible in this new position, and after finding over 22,000 missing soldiers... she decided to take some vacation. So she booked a long trip to Europe, but never one to just relax and enjoy life, she found herself in Switzerland and somehow ended up helping the organization there tend to wounded soldiers who were fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, or the War of 1870. So our angel of the battlefield, she just can't seem to help herself, right? Well, the organization she was working with very much impressed her. Their structure and approach to delivering medical supplies and their efficiency on the battlefield, they were remarkable. And so, she promptly returned to America and began lobbying. She badgered President Rutherford B. Hayes. And then after that, she badgered Chester A. Arthur until finally she was able to convince someone to start a similar organization here in America. And so, on May 21, 1881, the American Society of the Red Cross was formed. with Clara at the helm, of course. And believe it or not, at that time, she was 59 years old. Wow. And what an amazing organization she created. Today's American Red Cross is huge, and it helps people all around the world, not just in America. And what is interesting to learn is it's not a governmental body. It's a separate, charitable, humanitarian organization. And they claim that they can respond to emergencies within eight minutes. which seems hard to believe, but that's what they say. And they responded to over 65,000 disasters a year, most of which are house fires, and 95% of their response teams are volunteer workers. You probably associate the Red Cross with blood drives, right? Well, they claim that they supply 40% of the nation's blood. That's impressive. What's interesting is, along with the normal CPR and first aid training they offer, they also have babysitter training, and swim safety training classes. How about that? And I was surprised to learn that the emblem they use, the red cross on the white background, is a legally protected symbol internationally. I guess that makes sense, but I didn't realize it was an official emblem that's protected worldwide. So that's pretty neat. But the most important thing here is, thanks to the Angel of the Battlefield's passion and drive, Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved and millions of lives have been improved because of her dream and vision. Thank you, Clara. A time traveler's delight, we journey with grace to moments of courage that heroes embrace. If these tales have inspired and uplifted your heart, please share with your friends so they can take part. If you were the leader of a small city in the middle of a small country and you wanted some recognition for your people and their homeland, how would you go about raising awareness? Let's say you wanted people to come visit and spend hundreds of millions of dollars with your citizens and then talk about your city and your country for years to come. How much would that be worth to you? How much would you invest to make something like that happen? Well, I have a story about that in just a minute. But first, I'd like to talk to you about two sports that have the same name but which are very different from each other. Football and football. What? Yeah, yeah, listen again. Football and football. Okay, okay. How about football and soccer? Does that feel better? Well, it really should be football and American football. Yes. That's probably the most accurate way to say that. Why do I put it that way? Well, let's look at some stats real quick. Just a couple numbers. I promise it won't hurt. I found a stat that says in 2023 in the U.S., we had about 5.5 million people who play organized tackle football at all age levels. On the same site, interestingly, I found in 2023 that flag football is on the rise, and there were over 7 million people who play flag football in organized leagues. And it's growing like crazy. So note to self, research an episode about flag football. Okay, so this five and a half million number, that feels like a lot of tackle footballers, right? Well, it's actually small compared to football. But I want to keep this easy. I don't want to confuse things. So I'm going to use the word soccer for the rest of the episode because that's what I grew up calling football. I called it soccer. And according to FIFA, which I'm going to talk about that more in a minute, There are over 200 member associations around the world that have over 300,000 soccer clubs, and that translates to about 240 million men, women, boys, and girls playing organized soccer all around the world. Wow. Okay, so for those of you who are quick at math, that's over 40 times more soccer players worldwide than tackle footballers in America. Okay, I guess that makes sense, right? The world's a big place. There's 8 billion people, 330 million in America. It works, right? But let's compare two more numbers, and then I'm done with math. So the most recent NFL championship, called the Super Bowl, has over 124 million viewers in the U.S. and over 60 million around the world. So for fun, we'll call it 200 million folks tuned in to watch the Super Bowl. Question of the day, how many of them tuned in just to see Taylor Swift? Okay, the most recent soccer championship, called the FIFA World Cup, had about 1.5 billion people tuned in. And that's just to the championship game. FIFA also claims, and I'm not sure how accurate this is, but they claim that about 4 billion people tuned in to watch match play of all games in the tournament. That's half the planet. If that's true, that's just crazy to think about. Half of the population of Earth tuned in and watched some FIFA soccer. It's probably likely that several billion people watched, because when your country was playing, you wanted to watch it, and there were 32 different countries participating. The population of those countries definitely make up more than half the planet of interested folks, so maybe. Okay, so soccer's popular, Truman. We get it. But where's our story? Well... Our story today is featuring opposites, and these are truly as opposite as anything can get. You think of day versus night, fire versus ice, diamond versus dust, or virtue versus vile. By now, I'm guessing you're getting the picture. The full story is about how virtue and vile coexist in and around this FIFA organization, with the virtue being its incredibly popular spectacle of the World Cup event where half the world is tuning in to watch, and then the disgusting, vile side, which is what we're going to talk about today. The story starts with a humble beginning. Back in 1904, on this day, May 21st, the Fédération Internationale du Football Association was formed. So there were seven European countries, including Belgium, Spain, and obviously France, along with four others. who wanted to get organized as it comes to overseeing soccer. Each of those countries had their own governing body, but the teams wanted to play internationally. They wanted standardized rules. They wanted organized matches. They wanted leagues and the ability to transfer players and regulate all that stuff. And so they needed an international governing body. And so that's what they did. And in the beginning... all was good or pretty good. They had their growing pains. They had to add more countries. They also had to deal with World War I taking place in the early 1900s, and that kind of put a damper on things. Soccer was a sport that was growing in popularity, and so they needed this organization. Soccer was part of the Olympics since 1900. And so there was a way to decide who was the best soccer team in the world when FIFA started things off. But of course, eventually FIFA wanted to have its own tournament to determine who was the best soccer team in the world. So what they did was they created this World Cup concept. They needed a host for the very first one. And so they selected Uruguay as the host country. because Uruguay actually had won the gold medal in soccer in 1924 and 1928, so they were the best team in the world at the time. And the World Cup didn't want to conflict with the Olympics tournament, so they made it every other two years. So the last Olympics was in 1928. They'd started the World Cup in 1930. And, believe it or not, that year, Uruguay won again. They won the tournament, the very first World Cup tournament, out of the 13 teams that participated. So as the popularity of this tournament grew, so did the money that was being made. There were handfuls of money being made in the 40s and gobs of money in the 50s, turned into barrelfuls of money in the 60s and 70s, truckloads of money in the 80s and 90s, and then insane money in the 2000s. Insane. Now all this craziness happened because the tournament started being televised in 1954. So from that time on, now folks all around the world, instead of having to travel to the host country to watch their team play, they could just click the button and it's there on TV for them. And of course, when you have that many fans tuning in and that much money and advertising dollars and everything else, now everybody wants to host the World Cup tournament because an incredible portion of that insane money gets pumped back into the host country. Now, once I tell you that the decision to select a hosting country is made by only 24 officials behind closed doors, you can guess where this is going, right? So back to my question at the beginning of the segment. I said, how much would you invest to make your city more popular? Really, the question should have been, how much would you pay, bribe, officials to To have half the world's eyeballs watching the millions of fans filling soccer stadiums in your country all focused on you and your people and your country and your heritage. How much would you pay? What's that worth to you? Well, hold on and I'll tell you. But these 24 folks who made this decision, they had lots of power. And they were being bribed with lots of money. And so they did everything they could to stay in power as long as they could until they would get caught. One way to make that easier, you know, to not get caught, was to move their headquarters to Switzerland. That's right. They moved their headquarters away from France to Switzerland because then they could use all the secret bank accounts and, you know, hard to track the money. It's hard to get information out of the Swiss bank accounts, right? So they made it harder to get caught. Yep. So when FIFA was determining where the 2006 World Cup would be played, the investigations revealed that Russia bribed at least four of these money grubbers that were in power. And then, when the location of the 2010 World Cup was being determined, the investigation revealed that millions of dollars were being paid in bribes by South Africa. My goodness. And then the selection process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which was done together. This is the cherry on top. The moldy, spoiled cherry on top of a trash heap of corruption. And what happened? The teeny tiny, never-been-heard-of-before-by-pretty-much-anyone-outside-the-Middle-East country called Qatar won the bid. Stunning. At this point, the bribes were in the multi-millions of dollars, with one of the money grubbers admitting to receiving $5 million for his vote. Some reports claim that over $500 million was channeled to 22 people in and around those 24 money grubbers. Believe me. People have investigated this, and several of the Grubbers have been arrested. But there have been no trials yet, and maybe there never will be. Ugh, what a mess, right? Well, some good news here. Just over half of these Grubbers have been indicted or banned. And so now they're no longer on this selected council, this decision-making group. And you might argue, well, that just opens the door for more money grubbers, right? Well, they also changed the way that the country selection process worked. Now, all 211 countries that are in the FIFA, they all have one vote. And so with that many people, it should be a little bit more of a democratic process. Yep, so that's the ugly side of FIFA and the World Cup. We'll flip the coin one day and we'll talk about the awesomeness of the beautiful game, as Pele called it. And there you have it. Some great stories to share with your someone special to celebrate May 21st. Once again, those are... Now, before I get to the reflection moment from today's show, I'm taking a poll. I'd like to hear from you fellow knowledge seekers. What can I do to make this podcast better? More stories? Fewer stories? In each story, tell a little more or maybe dial it back a little? Add some other on this day features? The famous birthday segment was a suggestion from a listener. Do you like that? Maybe, maybe not. What others are there? Let me know. Either leave me a message using the SpeakPipe link or send me an email. Or you can find me, Truman Passworthy, on Facebook and let me know there. All right. Now, for all the stories that I tell, I do a good bit of research. And when I can, I try to connect with folks who are experts in the field, who have a lot more knowledge than I do about those things, just to gain perspective and get some interesting viewpoints. And for today, I joined some Star Wars Facebook groups. I wanted to get some ideas about Yoda and understand a little bit more about his history and learn a little bit more about him. And my goodness, the diehard Star Wars fans, they take their Yoda seriously. On one of my question threads... Some diehard got angry with another one, and they were arguing about Yoda and the Jedi Council and how they failed the Jedi because the Sith Lords did whatever they did. It was crazy. They went back and forth arguing with each other. It was eye-opening. And so I decided I'm going to keep the Yoda segment more mainstream rather than get too deep into any specifics because it would just be a landmine that I don't want to get into. Goodness. All right, so after you share your special stories, you can also mention the following famous folks who celebrate their birthdays today. Robert Downey Jr., happy birthday. He's most famous for his Iron Man role, but he's been acting for a long, long time. And over those years, he's won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and some Screen Actors Guild Awards. Yeah, so love him or hate him. The Notorious Big, he would have turned 52 today. He's one of the most famous gangster rappers. He started out as Biggie, and then he became Biggie Smalls, but apparently there's some other Biggie Smalls out there that threatened him legally, so he had to change his name to the notorious Big. Josh Allen, the quarterback of the tackle football Buffalo Bills, celebrates his birthday today as well. He'd be more famous if he could beat Patrick Mahomes in a playoff game. Gianna Rose turns 13 today. Do you know her? Maybe you know her as Gia Flip 10. No? Well, she's the most famous person on one of the websites I use. And she's an actor, a dancer, and a YouTube star. And she's part of this group called The Rock Squad, which you'll have to ask a young person what that one is. And then, according to FamousBirthdays.com, the 50th most famous person born on May 21st is Keith L. Williams, who played Jasper on the Fox television series Last Man on Earth. I hadn't seen the show, but it made it to four seasons before getting canceled. He was also in the movie Secret Headquarters, another one I have not seen, and I heard it wasn't that great of a movie. So hopefully Keith will find himself in some other better role so he can boost above the 50th most famous slot. All right, need a great gift idea for your loved one? Well, after you share all these awesome stories, you can have them open up a gift that is customized to their birthday today. And I have several great ideas for you, along with links in the show notes. Today is National Strawberries and Cream Day. So pick up some strawbs and several cans of whipped cream and head to your loved one's house and go crazy. And while there, you can tell everyone that the oldest documented pairing of these two sweets was at a lavish banquet hosted by King Henry VIII back in 1509. So they've been celebrating strawberries and cream for over 500 years. And today is also National Memo Day. So you can find a sticky note collection, send them to your loved one, or try the magnetic sticky notes that go on their fridge. But here's a fun twist to that idea. Instead, have your pack of sticky notes sent to you, and then you open them up, and then flip through to the middle of one of the pages and write a fun little message to your loved one, and then reassemble it all back together and send it to them as a gift. And then you get to wait and see how long it takes them until they find your little hidden note. All right, continuing on, there's a plethora of Yoda items that you can find as a great gift. Both Yoda and Baby Yoda shirts, Yoda toys, posters, pretty much anything Yoda you can find. There aren't quite as many options out there featuring Clara Barton, but you can find an interesting book on her life. And there are some Red Cross gifts that you could make customized to today. And then back on the other plethora side again, the FIFA gifts, there's a much wider range of those. There's FIFA video games for PlayStation and Xbox. And there are also other FIFA soccer balls and FIFA decor and little FIFA mock trophies, shirts, posters, everything. You can get jerseys, uniforms for your favorite FIFA World Cup soccer players. So all that, there's links to all that in the show notes. Oh yeah, and one of the coolest thing I found is a Robert Downey throw blanket. It has his smiling mug. They took his headshot from all of his different roles and characters from all the different movies, and they threw it all on this one blanket. So that's pretty neat. Something you should check out if you're a big fan of his. Yeah, so there are lots of customized gifts to May 21st available out there. And I'm sure some of those your loved one does not have. And as always, if those ideas aren't cool enough, you can give them a personalized shout-out right here on the podcast. If you want to try the old-fashioned way, you can email me, tell me their name, something interesting you want mentioned, and I'll do it for you. Or, you can try out the SpeakPipe link, and you can record your own shout-out that might sound something like this.

Grandchildren:

Hi, Mom, Mom. Happy birthday. We all love you.

Truman:

And we figured, since you always sing us happy birthday on our birthdays, that we'd return the favor.

Grandchildren:

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Happy birthday to you.

Truman:

Happy birthday to you.

Grandchildren:

Happy birthday, dear ma'am. Happy birthday to you.

Truman:

Happy birthday, ma'am.

Grandchildren:

Make sure you make the best day you possibly can.

Truman:

Let's go, Mountaineers!

Grandchildren:

Let's go, Mountaineers! Love you, my mom. Happy birthday.

Truman:

Thank you for being a great grandma. You can find the link to do that in the show notes. And as always, if you have a story that just needs to be shared about any day in the past, send me an email on Let's Connect. And while you're thinking about all that, how about clicking the follow button on your podcast app so that you get notifications when the next episode is going to be released. And you know what? If you're still listening at this point, I want to hear from you. No, no, no. I need to hear from you. Someone. Anyone. Calling all day striders. Olly olly and come free. Yeah, did that motivate you to find that speak pipe link? Click it and say, hey, I'm here, Truman. We're good. All's good. Either way, if you do that or not, I'm still living the dream. I'm having fun making these episodes and I'm excited about the future. I think we have something fun for everyone. So thanks for listening, and especially thanks for all the encouragement you give me, whether it's in Facebook or email or on the telephone. Love it. If you had half as much fun listening as I did creating this episode, sharing it with a friend or family member would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, this is Truman Pastworthy, reminding you that every day has a great story. And we'll be striding through them all to find some more goodies for you. Now get out there and make your own great story today.