DayStrider: Tales from a Time Traveler

Jun 11th: Escape From Alcatraz

• Truman Pastworthy • Episode 13

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June 11th is a day that proves “where there’s a will, there’s a way” because of the ingenious events and creations that occurred today in history! Fun stories include: 

  • An adventurous tale of patience and creativity that led to the impossible: Escape From Alcatraz?  Did they make it out?
  • Fun Facts about one of the most popular movies of all-time - and why it never had a sequel!
  • Hear from podcaster Muddy Grimes as he celebrates his passion - loud & fast cars - for Hot Rod Day.   

If it's a special day for you or for someone you care about, why not learn a little more 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!  If you need some great gift ideas, we have those too (along with links to where you can find them on Amazon).

Today’s show includes a special guest - Muddy Grimes.  A link to his show can be found below. (this link worked in mid 2024 - not sure how long the links will be available):


Gift ideas for folks who celebrate June 11th:

Full disclosure:  If you use these gift idea links and make

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 June 11th is a day to get loud and proud about. Our journey will first take us to Alcatraz, the escape-proof prison built out on an island in the San Francisco Bay. Was it really escape-proof? Hmm. Next... We'll travel to the big screen and meet a lovable alien who was accidentally left behind here on Earth and needed to find a way to phone home. And before the return trip to your present self, we'll take in a heavy dose of nostalgia as podcaster Muddy Grimes joins us to celebrate National Hot Rod Day. After striding through June 11th, you'll have a greater appreciation for human ingenuity. whether it's applied in devious, glorious, or ingenious ways. Time's a-tickin', so let's get to it. 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. So believe it or not, there are more prisoners in America than in any country in the whole world, with nearly 2 million people behind bars. And there are more jailbreak movies in America than anywhere else in the world. We are just huge fans of escapes and have been fascinated with escapes for the entire history of our country. Think about it. From the times of the Underground Railroad, where slaves were escaping their captivity, to present day movies like Fugitive and Shawshank Redemption, we just love to root for the underdog. And the more clever the prisoner, the better the story. Well, on this day in 1962, a very clever escape was attempted from an unescapable prison. It's a tale of human ingenuity at its finest. And I only need one word to set the scene. Alcatraz. Yep, there are over 100 federal prisons, 1500 state prisons, and 4500 jails all across America. But none of them are as famous as Alcatraz. It has a catchy name, it's in a great location, and it has a cool nickname, The Rock. Everyone's heard of the place. Heck, it gets over 1.5 million visitors each year. Yes, that's right. It's open to the public, and it is quite the tourist destination. I actually got the chance to visit in the 80s with my cousins, and boy, was that a memorable experience, sitting in those little jail cells. So before I get to the story, a very fast history of the Alcatraz Island. In the 1850s, it was a military fort, and then sometime in the late 1800s, it was turned into a military prison. And then in the 1930s, the military prison was turned over to the U.S. prison system and became a U.S. prison. And at that time, here's what they claimed. America's strongest prison and the ideal place to house the nation's most ruthless and notorious criminals. Uh-huh. That's what they claimed. So they actually treated Alcatraz as the prison for prisoners. which meant if you were too hard to handle in your regular prison, wherever you were in America, you got shipped to Alcatraz. A perfect example is Al Capone. So you may know him as Scarface. He was the, which is a great movie, by the way, he was the leader of some mob activities in Chicago, but he was imprisoned in Atlanta. But somehow he was still able to control all the mob activities going on in Chicago and they needed to fix it. So they shipped him to the rock, and then slowly his control died away. Alcatraz was so highly regarded by officials because it had so many features at play. Obviously, the concrete and steel bars were the first round, and the prison guards were the second line of defense. But if you could get out of the building, you still had the tall fence with razor wire to pass, and then you had to get past the six guard towers, and those towers were manned 24 hours a day with guards who had orders to allow them to shoot. And then on top of that, it's the rock, which is a rock out in the middle of the bay. So over a mile from the closest shore. So if you snuck out of your cell, got past the guards, climbed the fence safely, snuck past the watchtowers, then you had to swim over a mile in some of the coldest waters possible where the tides were flowing and raging so very quickly. Okay. So why does the cold water and these tides matter? Well, here's some perspective. Every year, they have a triathlon in San Francisco called Escape from Alcatraz. Pretty neat name. Anyway, the 1.2-mile swim starts at the island and ends on the mainland, but they time the event so that it's in a dead tide, which means the tide is not raging in or out of the bay. And so elite professional swimmers wearing wetsuits can make this swim in under an hour. But given the frigid temps, if the rest of the swimmers aren't close enough to shore after an hour of swimming, they are repositioned for safety purposes. That's how difficult the swim is because of the water temps and the tides. All right, so here we go. There have been 14 known scape attempts from Alcatraz. And the most famous happened on this day in 1962. Four men schemed and worked for months and months on their escape plan. They did digging and sawing. They even did some MacGyvering with toilet paper and raincoats. But what's crazy is the key to their success came from a mainstream magazine. That's right. The March 1962 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine was had an article on life preservers and vulcanizing rubber. So that's how the gang of four prisoners, Frank, John, Clarence, and Alan, were going to make it from the rock to freedom. The key was in this popular mechanics magazine. So what they did was they convinced other prisoners to hoard up a stash of over 50 raincoats and together with some rubber cement, They would be able to make a life raft and life preservers that shouldn't leak and help them paddle above the frigid bay waters instead of swim in them. Hold on a second, Truman. That's a lot of raincoats. Where'd they hide 50 raincoats? I'll get to it. I'll get to it. Okay, so now that Frank and the gang had that last problem solved, it was time to get to work. First, they needed to get out of their cells. Now at Alcatraz, the cells are five feet by nine feet, which is about the size of a small kid's bathroom that has a bathtub because bathtubs are five feet wide. So it's about as wide as a bathtub and as long as maybe two bathtubs. And then, of course, the walls are all concrete. This floor and the ceiling are also concrete. But guess what? Concrete and salt air in the San Francisco Bay Area, they don't mix. The salinity in that air deteriorated the concrete. So much so that the gang was able to use spoons that they got from the mess hall. Don't ask me why the mess hall let them use metal spoons, but they used metal spoons and they started digging out small chunks of concrete around the air vent in the back of their cells. So every night, while one of them stood watch for the hourly bed checks that came through, they painfully chipped away the cement and then disposed of these little chips whenever they got outside their cells. Now, wait a second. Wouldn't the dumbest of guards walking by see an opening where the vent was just getting larger and larger? Yeah, yeah, they would. But these guys were very meticulous in their planning and they covered their tracks. How? They made papier-mâché replicas of the walls around the vents where they were digging out of soap and toilet paper. What? Yeah, exactly. So they used soap and toilet paper to make almost like a cardboard wall. And then in the machine shop, they were able to steal some of the paint that was the exact same color of the walls to paint their papier-mâché replicas. So now every night they could move the papier-mâché, dig and dig and dig a little bit around the hole of the vent, eventually getting it big enough that they could shimmy through. And then the next morning they slide their papier-mâché back into place, hides the hole. Perfect. Just walking by the prison cell from nine feet away, you didn't notice a thing. Wow. All right. So now, once they got the holes big enough that they could shimmy through, they were able to climb into the venting space between the rows of prison cells. And then they had to climb up three stories of prison cells, there were three levels in the building, on vent pipes, and then they began working on how are they going to get out onto the roof. Well, there are vent holes in the roof of the building, Of course, there were bars on them, but these bars weren't reinforced steel, so they were able to saw through them, which would still take a lot of time. And of course, there's these hourly bed checks. How are they going to get around that? They couldn't shimmy up and shimmy back every few minutes. That'd be crazy. Well, more ingenuity here. They took more toilet paper and soap, and they made busts of their heads, shaped like each of their faces, and to top things off, Literally, they swiped hair clippings from the barbershop floor and glued those into place on the heads of their little paper mache mannequins. For real, this is all true. How do I know all this is true? Well, remember I mentioned four members of the gang? Alan, one of the members, who was part of the escape plan, and of course who claims he was the mastermind behind all of it. He never made it out. Somehow, when they were timing their shimmying and getting up to the roof and getting out, he missed the boat. Pun intended. He missed the boat. And so, once the other three were gone, he had to shimmy his way back down into his cell and wait till the next morning to see what would happen. And of course, the next morning, the guards were coming through and they wanted the prisoners out for their morning rounds. And Frank, John, and Clarence, they weren't getting out of bed. They were still lying in their prison cot. So one of the guards reached his club in through the bars and was going to clink Frank on the head, and to his shock, Frank's head popped off and rolled onto the floor. I'm like, what did you do? It didn't take them long, obviously, to discover that that was a fake head, and they could obviously now see the hole in the wall where the vent should be. So a little while longer after some prison guards did some shimmying, they discovered up above the third floor of prison cells a stash of raincoat remnants. up near the roof. Remember I mentioned those 50 raincoats that got hoarded? That's where they put them, up on top of that top prison cell so that they could cut them in pieces and make their rafts and life preservers. Yeah. And they even found up there wood parts that they were using to make paddles that they would escape and they found Alan's paddle up there as well because he didn't need to use it to escape. So of course the alarm was sounded and the chase was on. And this is where things get interesting. Because the guards and the FBI, they all claim there's no way the gang made it across the bay. They even charted the water temperatures that night and the flowing of the tide, how many miles an hour it was flowing at the approximate escape time, and it suggested that the three must have died in the cold water and had to have been swept out to sea because that's the way the tide was flowing. And of course, no bodies were ever found. But what was found... was a sealed waterproof packet of photos on Angel Island, which is a mile north of the Rock. In the packet, there were photos of family members of John and Clarence, two members of the gang. I probably didn't mention that they were brothers, but two of the gang members were brothers. Also on Angel Island was one of the wooden paddles that I mentioned earlier. Yeah, I guess it could have washed up there, or did the gang actually leave it there by accident? Hmm. Now, over subsequent years, various things have popped up that make you want to believe they survived the bay. For example, in 2003, the case that the FBI had closed was transferred to a U.S. Marshal, and he decided to do some digging and found record of a stolen blue car in Marin County, which is north of the Rock, north of Angel Island, that was taken by three suspicious men. And then he further found a record of a complaint in Stockton, California, which is 100 miles east of the Rock, inland, where someone claimed to be forced off the road by a blue car driven by three men. Hmm. So what's interesting is these reports were filed on the same night as the escape, but the problem was news of the escape wasn't made public immediately. And so at the time the reports were filed... No one made any connection to those reports and the escape. And then I guess later, no one else made the connection either. Until this U.S. Marshal came along. And then, of course, in 2015, a grainy photo surfaces from family members of John and Clarence with claims that it's the two of them in Brazil. And then in 2020, some AI facial recognition software company allegedly used that grainy photo and then the original prison photos of the men. And they determined with their software that it was indeed John and Clarence. That's crazy, right? Well, the short story is there's no proof either way that the gang made it or not. But man, what a fun story. And you know what? I'd like to give a special shout out to David who requested this topic. I enjoyed researching this one. And remember that Clint Eastwood movie back in the 80s when I watched it? It all came flooding back to me. But thank you so much for the suggestion, David. Keep them coming. Roses are red and the rock is now closed. But your review will help us be more exposed. Can't find the words because you're stuck in a bind? Type, check out this pod. It's a true find. Sometimes folks just don't know when to say when, right? Well, the movie scene in 1982 is a great example of this because so many movies were released that were part of mega movie franchises. Well, all but one anyway. Start with Raiders of the Lost Ark. That was playing that year and that kicked off an incredible movie franchise featuring Indiana Jones and five movies in all. Rocky III was released that year. the third in Sylvester Stallone's franchise that has stretched to nine in all when you layer in the three Creed movies. Fun fact, also that movie was Mr. T's first dabble on the big screen, and it also popularized professional wrestling with Hulk Hogan getting some big screen time as well. Jason was back creating Havoc that year in Friday the 13th Part 3, the third in a series of 12 Thrasher films. Yes, they were really able to come up with that many variations of gore and gruesomeness. And then to top it off, the biggest franchise that produced a film in 1982, Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, was the second in a mega-franchise 13 movies. Actually, you think about it, I'm surprised the Friday the 13th folks Haven't tried to get a 13th installment. That would make sense, wouldn't it? Well, guess what? None of these were the most popular movie from 1982. Amazingly, the most popular movie from that year was forbidden by its director to ever have a sequel, let alone a whole franchise. Heck, the director didn't even want the movie to be released into the rental market. So it took six years to convince him to change his mind in 1988 and To allow the VHS, at that time, yes, VHS rentals. So I'm talking about, of course, the wonderful family movie, E.T. The Extraterrestrial, directed by Steven Spielberg, and featuring mostly children actors Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, and Robert McNaughton. So people like to slice and dice movies differently, and they look at IMDb ratings and Rotten Tomatoes scores. They also look at gross receipts. They look at awards that the movies have won, whether it's the actors, directors, composers, etc. The ones who make the creations come to life. So let's explore some of these and where E.T. lands. In terms of rating, I don't think E.T. really stands a chance when it comes to IMDb because it was made so far back in 1982. And at that time, the graphics and the animations, they just weren't that impressive, as you can see in current day. And everything wasn't in HD back then either. So that holds back their IMDb score. So I mention that because when we look at the IMDb scores for all of the Steven Spielberg movies, his best movie was Schindler's List in 1993. And Saving Private Ryan was a close second in 1998. E.T. comes in at number eight on the top ten Steven Spielberg lists, behind also Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and Jaws. But we can go look at receipts. So when it comes to worldwide box office receipts, we can try to normalize things a little bit and get away from this difference in graphics and video quality. So if you look at the list of top grossing films of all time, Right now, Avatar sits on top of that list. That was made in 2009. And E.T., it's way down there at the 104th spot. But guess what? I went to a website called In2013Dollars.com and converted all the box office receipts into 2024 dollars just to see what would happen. And when I did that, guess what takes the top spot? From 1997... Titanic moves into number one all time in gross receipts when you normalize them. Avatar slides to number two. E.T. jumps all the way up from 104 to number seven. Just for fun, some other huge jumps. The original Star Wars from 1977 was at 112 on the raw numbers list. Jumps up to the number three spot. And Jaws from 1975, sitting at number 260, jumps to the number five spot. So that's crazy. I guess inflation in the 1970s was insane. Oh, by the way, did I mention Jaws was directed by Steven Spielberg? I think I did. So that's pretty neat. All right, but I was able to find a number one ranking that E.T. achieved and has actually held since it was released on this day in 1982. the number one spot in the box office for 16 weeks. Apparently, none of those other huge flicks and none of those franchises were able to top that feat. E.T. was out in theaters for 363 days, essentially a whole year. I can't imagine that happening a lot these days, but wow, that is amazing. All right, so now I have a few quick fun facts for you. Steven Spielberg, I mentioned his name already a couple times. He's directed a ton of movies, 34 to be exact, over the past 50 years. So when Spielberg was directing Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is that first Indiana Jones movie I mentioned, they were filming some scenes out in the desert in Tunisia. And one day, after filming, he was strolling around by himself, looking at desert stones and feeling lonely, and reflected on his childhood. And that's where the idea for E.T. was born. In his childhood, he had a broken home, and he imagined having an alien befriend him and help give him hope. So he immediately went back to where all the actors and crew was and tracked down Melissa Matheson, who happened to be Harrison's Ford girlfriend at the time, and who was also a movie writer, and she got to work immediately helping him write E.T. and Me. Another thing about Spielberg, he got a lot of credit for his work with children actors in this movie. He wanted to try to have a movie with no adults or very few adults, and he achieved that. And he collaborated with those children actors. Remember I mentioned Henry Thomas? He was nine, and Drew Barrymore was seven when they acted out their scenes. He presented many of those scenes and asked them what they would say or what their first impression would be, all with the camera rolling. And many of those ad-lib scenes were cut into the movie. One example was when Drew Barrymore first got to see E.T.' 's feet, she said, I don't like his feet, and they put it right into the movie, so it was perfect. Another ingenious move from Spielberg, he filmed the entire movie in chronological order. Okay, why is that a big deal? Well, films are almost never shot in chronological order. So that's the order the scenes appear in the movie. They aren't filmed that way. Instead, they're shot in the most efficient order possible on certain locations with certain scenes and stage setups and costumes and makeup. And then they're cut and edited into the final show that we actually see on screen. But Spielberg wanted all of the actors to meet E.T. and get to know him over the course of filming. So that when they got to the end and had to say goodbye, the emotions would be the highest. They'd be the most heartfelt and real. And believe it or not, this trick actually worked. It worked well. There's a scene in the making of E.T. where Drew Barrymore is sob crying knowing that E.T. is gone. And it was just heartfelt, that part of it, even though it's just a movie. All right. A couple more fun facts and then I'll let you go. Here's a big one. Imagine how angry the M&M Mars big dogs must have been as they watched the rise of Hershey's Reese's Pieces as their competition. So the two candies look similar, right? They're similar in size and shape. They have a candy coating around the outside. M&M's obviously has chocolate in the middle and Reese's Pieces has peanut butter flavoring in the middle. But there was a scene in the movie where Elliot is luring E.T. into his house and to his bedroom with a trail of the candies. And I actually don't remember Reese's Pieces until the movie. They were introduced four years before the movie came out. And I, of course, was prime candy-eating age at that time. And I don't live very far from Hershey, Pennsylvania. And so I should have heard of them, but I didn't. And then when the movie came out, of course, now I'd seen it. Now I wanted to try some. And just like everyone else, we had to go out and find these Reese's Pieces and have them. And they were sold out in some stores. I remember that happening. The company said their sales shot up and reported 85% in the weeks following the movie's release. So that's pretty crazy. And Spielberg, he originally wanted to use the M&Ms. But the Mars folks declined that product placement opportunity. Oops. Alrighty. So remember way back in the beginning of the segment, I said, some folks just don't know when to say when. Well, kudos to Spielberg for not turning E.T. into this long lasting movie franchise. He just wanted to have one movie and he wanted to tell a story about his own childhood. And he only lived his childhood once and he decided, no, this is what I want to do. I want one movie about this experience and that's it. So again, kudos to Spielberg for not trying to stretch that thing out in the name of making extra money. A time traveler's delight, we venture afar, exploring stories that made us who we are. If these tales have sparked joy and wonder anew, please share with your friends. They want joy too. Today is Hot Rod Day. A day to rev your engines loud and push the pedal to the metal for some intense speed. Now, hot rodders have some very exacting definitions of what is truly a hot rod. But the holiday is really all about celebrating the car culture and the hobby of cars. Well, my friend and fellow podcaster Muddy Grimes has this definition for a hot rod.

Muddy Grimes:

Hot rodding at its absolute core, if you were to just dissect it down to nothing, is you have a cheaper car, you work on it, you make it a better car. Hopefully a faster car. That's it. That's the absolute basis of hot rodding. And you want to do it as cheaply as possible.

Truman:

Google says that a hot rod is a slang term for a car that is stripped of its unnecessary parts and rebuilt for a quick acceleration and great speed. So that's pretty much the same thing that Muddy was saying. And Hot Rod Day is actually a relatively new holiday, but it's celebrating a very old pastime. Hot Rodding dates back to the 1930s and has grown in popularity in spits and waves over the decades.

Muddy Grimes:

In the old days, like right after World War II, which World War II was the best and worst thing that ever happened to cars. It was the worst thing because they had all the metal drives and all the older cars got crushed to make tanks. But it was the best thing in that all the fighter plane pilots got back and they were used to doing five, 600 miles an hour. And now they're doing 56 miles an hour. They're not digging on that. So they're taking the modern engine and they're putting it in the light little nothing cars. And that's the origin of hot rodding as we know it. So hot rodding at its core is alive and well.

Truman:

So the Peterson Automotive Museum created this holiday, which is fitting since the founder of the museum, Robert E. Peterson, was a huge car enthusiast. His company actually published the Hot Rod magazine, along with other car-related publications and outdoor publications. So Hot Rod magazine wasn't Muddy's favorite, as some of the others out there.

Muddy Grimes:

Cartoons was my favorite Hot Rod magazine. And they brought it back recently. It's not nearly as funny as it used to be. But it was all just hilarious skits about cars drawn in like a comic book style. And it was a really awesome magazine back in the old days. But I liked Hot Rod. I liked Car Craft more because Car Craft was more technical and explained to you how to do this stuff. Hot Rod was more like, here's a picture of somebody's Camaro. Page two, here's another picture of somebody else's Camaro. And you got to the point where you got sick of seeing Camaros and you got sick of seeing small block Chevys and Camaros in Hot Rod magazine.

Truman:

So they were more mainstream and the car craft might have been more, you know, niche down into the different.

Muddy Grimes:

Right. It got a little more detailed into the different aspects of the car culture.

Truman:

But he can't appreciate the evolution of hot rodding into today's younger generation, which I thought was neat.

Muddy Grimes:

You'll see it with the tuner cars, the little Japanese cars where the guys have the big exhausts on the back. It's evolving to not just be old American iron. Okay. But it's still hot rodding because you're still taking a car and you're still making it better than it was. And you're still doing it in your driveway. All right. So that's a key element, doing it in your driveway, right? Right. You're doing it with your friends.

Truman:

And clearly he feels like hot rodding should be on a budget. When you get up into the higher end of price ranges, they escape the boundaries of what fundamental hot rodding is all about.

Muddy Grimes:

Hot rodding itself has been perverted to the point that it's not what it used to be in that now it's more $50,000 builds that you go to a shop to have done. And that's not true hot rodding, but everybody thinks of that as hot rods. Yeah. And it's just... It's kind of an insult to the guys who did it first.

Truman:

Of course, differing opinions is what makes the world go round, right? So the first Hot Rod Day was timed in a way to also celebrate the 1932 Ford, which is a classic car that has been converted into hot rods by many, many hobbyists. So people remove the fenders from this thing so that the wheels are exposed, and they remove the hood so that the engine can be exposed, and actually, they often replace the engine of the 1932 vehicle with a much bigger, more powerful engine from the 50s and 60s that stick out and above the car, like Muddy was saying earlier. Now, I asked Muddy to do me the kind favor of matching up one of these older Ford cars to an AC-DC song that would most accurately personify the and represent what that car meant to hot rodding. And he hit this one out of the park.

Muddy Grimes:

The first is what everybody thinks of when they think of a hot rod, which is a 28 to 31 Ford Model A coupe with a big V8 sticking off the front of it. Personally, I prefer the mid-50s Chrysler Hemi sticking off the front. A lot of people prefer the flathead, but, you know, whatever, it's still a big V8 sticking off the front of a really light car. Zoomy headers, a blower sticking up off the top. Yeah, a big blower, right. Because that is hot rodding in its most pure form. It's bare bones, big motor, small car, all the power you can slap to it, doesn't weigh anything, and you know it's going to be quick. And to me, it just pairs up perfectly with rocker off of the dirty deeds album because that's angus and malcolm are just losing their ever-loving minds on that the drum power you feel it in your throat just the pure drum just vibrates your throat Just like the exhaust of that car because the headers don't have any baffles in them. All they are is just straight pipes coming out. So every explosion from the motor, you feel. Every hit of that bass and of that drum, you feel. It's pure, unadulterated rock. It's a pure, unadulterated hot rod. And there's no better pairing than those two things together.

Truman:

That is fantastic. I love it. Yes. And that is a great song. If we didn't have to worry about copywriting, we would play it in the background. He also matched up a couple more cars to ACDC songs, and you can hear all about those in the bonus episode. In that bonus episode, you will also learn how Muddy Grimes got his name. And you'll hear some funny stories about his experiences with his cars. There's a good one in there. And you'll learn a little bit about more why he's a hammer magnet. Not only that, He's a listener of the Daystrider Show, and so his answers in my speed round questions are quite unique because he came prepared. It's a fun listen with a lot of laughs, for sure. You've got to check out the bonus episode. In fact, here's a teaser from that episode about his current car project. So you're a Cordoba. How long have you had that car? How long have you been working on that one?

Muddy Grimes:

Almost a year. I bought it actually for a podcast challenge for a show called B-Squad Hot Rod. And they had challenged their listeners to buy a car for less than $1,800, build it, and drive it to SEMA. Okay. And I was right on track to do that. The car was under that price, and I built it really well by that point. And I was going to drive it to SEMA, but I kind of got airborne in it and messed the front suspension up.

Background Noise:

Okay.

Truman:

You kind of got airborne. To catch the rest of that story, check it out in the bonus episode. Oh, yeah. Want to know why we should respect Muddy's opinion on hot rods? Well, he's been into cars from a very young age.

Muddy Grimes:

Well, one of my earliest memories, I was three and a half years old. We lived in a little nothing town in Oklahoma that doesn't even qualify as a spec on a map. My parents, they had this old car. And my dad liked 20-year-old cars, so I'm assuming it was from the 50s because this was the mid-70s. I can't remember the car for anything, but I remember what happened. My parents were out there in the yard painting this car with a paint roller and house paint. What? Which was kind of a big thing back then because, you know, things rust and you try to cover it, but you can't afford the Earl Scheib 6995 or whatever it was paint job, so... You just do what you have to do. That's, like I said, that's my earliest memory. And then years later, when I was probably nine, maybe eight, my dad would take me to the local salvage yard, a place called Russell Ritchie's. And we would be crawling all over that salvage yard looking for parts for, and this is a direct quote, that damned old Rambler, because nobody carried Rambler parts. So we had to go to the salvage yard to get what we could find. And I basically grew up with a wrench in one hand and a flashlight in the other, helping my dad work on cars. Yeah, so you were holding the light while he did what he had to do? Yeah, he would say, give me a half-inch wrench. And like every other kid, if I gave him a 7-16 wrench, I got a tongue lashing. So I learned real quickly how to read fractions.

Truman:

So hopefully you've had a chance to reflect on this fun holiday. And perhaps you're curious as to why hot rods seem to mostly use older cars and older engines. Well, think about today's mainstream engines. Everyone's going electric. What fun would a Tesla engine be on a 1932 Ford? Yeah, maybe the speed would be there, but without that loud engine, it's just a rod. Not so hot. Yep. So that's okay, right? The trends for automobiles have evolved with safety and environmental concerns in mind, and those are all great things. But it also means that hot rods will nearly always be these nostalgic cars from the first half of the 1900s. I guess that is one way to keep us grounded on our history, right? Meh. And there you have it. Some great stories to share with your someone special to celebrate June 11th. Once again, those were Where There's a Will, There's a Way. And we learned how three men used this to escape from an escape-proof prison. We got to relive some memories and hear some cool side stories of the timeless and classic movie E.T. And Hot Rod Day is a great way to harken back the adventures of the loud and proud car days. So if you liked learning about how prisoners have overcome odds, there's an interesting story about a prisoner using Morse code in the January 8th episode. Check that out. If you enjoyed learning about space aliens and movie characters and fun side stories about E.T., then you'll also love the May 21st episode featuring Yoda from the Star Wars series. And if you liked hearing from experts like Muddy Grimes about special days of the year like Hot Rod Day, well... Check out Kamook and his take on Yooka-Laylee Day, February 2nd, and Uncle Brad with his take on the Irish coffee on St. Paddy's Day. They include fun-filled and expertly told stories. So many stories and so much fun. Yeah, we've got a little something for everyone. Now, for my reflection moment today, I wanted to reflect on a comment I heard while researching the Alcatraz jailbreak. And yes, not only do I read websites, I watch YouTube videos to learn the content for each segment. And there was a warden being interviewed, and he was talking about the prison guards and how they put their 8 to 10 hours a day in the job, then they go home and their thoughts and ideas drift to many other things that are going on in their lives. Meanwhile, those prisoners that they're guarding, they're stuck in their cells with nothing to think about except how to break out without getting caught. And so they think about escape every waking hour of the day. And so, of course, there'll be times when some prisoners are actually able to escape. It's inevitable, even from the rock. All right, after you share these special stories, you can also mention the following famous folks who celebrate their birthday today. Peter Dinklage turns 55 today. He's the little person from movies and shows like The Elf, And he's also been in one of the Hunger Games movies, and he's made an appearance in the Avengers and the X-Men. But definitely, without a doubt, he's most famous for his role in the HBO series, The Game of Thrones. That was an incredible series, and he was an amazing actor. He brought Tyrion Lannister to life, and man, it was really good stuff. All right, Claire Holt. Adds a candle to her cake today. She is an actress who played Rebecca, a bad woman in the Vampire Diaries, and then a badass good woman in the originals. She also played Chastity Meyer in Mean Girls 2. I didn't see that one. But I was forced to watch the Vampire Diaries with my daughter. Yep, so I did get to watch Rebecca and all the other vampires. P.S. Klaus is my favorite. Joe Montana of NFL fame celebrates his birthday today. How fitting. that he played for the 49ers. We were talking about Alcatraz, both from San Francisco. And I was trying to find an article that mentions Montana's visit to Alcatraz. Surely he visited there after all those years playing in San Francisco. But I did find a funny story I'm going to share. So one day he was on the sidelines and he had just hung up the phone there with one of the people in the box. And he wondered, hey, do these phones dial out? So he picked the handset back up, hit the nine and got a dial tone. So then he dialed his home number and his wife, Jennifer, picked up and he told her, hey, how you doing, honey? I'm just calling to say I love you. That's pretty fun. All right. Normally, I like to feature the 50th most famous person showing up on famousbirthdays.com. But that famous person is YouTuber Brian Redman. And when I looked him up, he stopped making videos over two years ago. Boo. So then I went to the 49th most famous person. who is also a YouTuber, Sidian. And she is making videos, and I watched a couple. They were okay, I'd say. So happy birthday, Sidian, 50th, 49th most famous birthday. And then the oldest living person born today, according to Wikipedia's centenarians list, is Diana Armfield. She's turning 104 today in 2024. She lives in Ringwood, Hampshire. which is in England. And she's a kind of famous and known artist who's painted landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. And she's consulted on various painting publications. Pretty neat. 104. Today is corn on the cob day. Now having corn in June is a great treat. But what's odd is that most farm fresh corn isn't even ready this early in the growing season. But whatever, it's still corn on the cob day. Now, interestingly, corn cobs always have an even number of rows, so you can try to win some money off your family members, challenging them to find odd-numbered rows of corn. Today is also German chocolate cake day. Now, hopefully you're sitting down because German chocolate cake is not from Germany. No, it's from America. It was invented by a guy whose last name is German. So Samuel German developed this special, specific dark baking chocolate for the company he worked for, and so somehow they decided to name it the German Chocolate Cake. Apparently, though, coconut pecan frosting is a signature part of this cake, and I'm not a big coconut fan, so maybe that's why I've never had German Chocolate Cake. But a lot of people like it. All right, and here's one I've never heard of. It's International Yarn Bombing Day. which involves guerrilla knitting and street graffiti in public spaces using yarn. Yes, this is a thing, and it seems the most common targets for this are trees in the parks and fountains that aren't running water, of course, and fire hydrants. And it seems that this day started in the late 90s, and it's been trying to knit one and purl two its way around the world. Okay. Today is also Say Hi Day. Hi. All right. Need a great gift idea for your loved one? Well, after you share these awesome stories, you can have them open up a gift that is customized to their birthday. And I have several great ideas for you. And as always, you can find links to these in the gift idea section of my show notes. Often I mention you can get a unique gift for the person involved. who has everything. Well, today is no exception. I'm confident that your loved one, celebrating June 11th, doesn't have any Alcatraz decor in their home. You could get them the movie. There are coffee table books about the jailbreak, wall hangings that celebrate the prison, and the escape that happened on this day. Pretty cool stuff. I could possibly go so far as to say your loved one doesn't have anything E.T. related in their house. Do they have an E.T. bobblehead? There are several things E.T. related you could get as a gift. And when I was looking at Hot Rod related items, there are, of course, the original magazines out there and all kinds of pictures of Hot Rods. But the most intriguing of all Hot Rod things I found was this shirt I'd call it a Hawaiian shirt. It's got Hot Rods and fireworks displays and it's incredibly loud. It's a totally awesome gift for a loved one who likes wearing loud shirts. And... Peter Dinklage was in lots of movies, so you could get any one of those. And if your loved one was a Game of Thrones fan, there's lots of Tyrion Lannister items out there as well. Including a t-shirt with his saying, I drink and I know things. So, yep, actually lots of customized gifts to June 11th. Great options. And many of them are very unique. And if those ideas aren't cool enough... You can give them a personalized shout out right here on this podcast. We can do it the old fashioned way where you email me their name and some tidbits and I will do the shout out or you can do your own. We've added the speak pipe link and all you have to do is call it in and it'll sound something like these.

Muddy Grimes:

Happy birthday Patrick. I love you.

Guest:

Hey, Patrick, this is Errol. Just wanting to give you a very special happy birthday. I'm wishing you all the best, and I hope that it's filled with lots of great games and even better memories. For the Emperor and for Leman Russ!

Truman:

You can find the link to do those in the show notes. And while you're thinking about all that, how about clicking the follow button on your podcast app? Yep, so you can get notifications when the next episode is released. And if you're still listening at this point, I'm repeating a challenge that I issued in the May 21st episode. It's really easy. I'm going to ask you to think of your favorite time travel movie and then ask you to try out the new BuzzSpout feature of sending me a text. So there's a link in the show notes that says, text me your favorite time travel movie. Click that link, type your answer, hit send, boom. You can do it right now from your phone, literally. Push pause on the show and go do it right now. On my end, I can't tell the number you're texting from, so it's anonymous. So please try it out. You can do it. Last time I said, if my mom can do it, then you can do it. Well, she hasn't been able to figure it out yet. So hopefully, hopefully you can be more qualified at this than my mom was. All right. So anyway, I have my own list of favorite time travel movies, and I'll be featuring those on December 8th of 2024. So you have some time to get me your choice. And then we can layer in your feedback into the segment. And as always, I hope you had half as much fun listening as I did creating this episode. Sharing it with a friend or family member would be incredible and sincerely appreciate it. 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.