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Secret Sauce · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The secret was in the recipe. Angelo Mariani
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  Speaker 1: made his concoction in a very special way. Two ounces
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  Speaker 1: of aromatic leaves to every one pint of wine. That's it.
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  Speaker 1: That was the recipe. Angelo came up with that deceptively
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  Speaker 1: simple formula at the Paris pharmacy where he worked as
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  Speaker 1: an apprentice. But he wasn't planning to be the under
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  Speaker 1: study for long. By all accounts, he always had the
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  Speaker 1: desire to invent some new medicine that would change the
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  Speaker 1: world and make him very rich in the process. And
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  Speaker 1: you might say that Angelo was one of the lucky
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  Speaker 1: ones because his dream became reality. He was helped out
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  Speaker 1: by a doctor that he knew, one who was looking
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  Speaker 1: for medicines that would help his patients with one of
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  Speaker 1: those never ending complaints of the human body, a sore throat.
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  Speaker 1: He directed his patients to the pharmacy where Angelo worked,
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  Speaker 1: and things really hit a high note when the doctor
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  Speaker 1: sent along one patient who needed to take better care
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  Speaker 1: of her throat than most. After all, she was an
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  Speaker 1: opera singer. She tried Angelo's experimental new topic, two ounces
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  Speaker 1: of aromatic leaves in one pint of Bordeaux wine, and
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  Speaker 1: she loved it. In fact, she loved it so much
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  Speaker 1: that she ordered a dozen bottles, and she was only
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  Speaker 1: the first of many. Angelo's dream was launched. He named
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  Speaker 1: his new wine based tonic after himself, Vin Mariani, and
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  Speaker 1: then hit the road. He knew the key to his
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  Speaker 1: success to recommendations. A doctor recommending the tonic to his
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  Speaker 1: patient had been the first step, and then that opera
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  Speaker 1: singer recommending the tonic to others had helped spread the word.
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  Speaker 1: So Angelo decided that he needed more of the same.
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  Speaker 1: He made a plan to use another new and powerful technology.
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  Speaker 1: He would send a case of his new tonic out
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  Speaker 1: with the request, try the tonic and if you like it,
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  Speaker 1: put down a recommendation in your own handwriting, sign it
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  Speaker 1: and send it back along with a photograph. Because if
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  Speaker 1: there was one thing that Angelo knew better than the
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  Speaker 1: pharmacy lab. It was what makes people tick. After all,
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  Speaker 1: Who doesn't like getting a free case of a new drink.
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  Speaker 1: Who doesn't like the chance to become an influencer on
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  Speaker 1: the cutting edge of a new trend. And soon enough,
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  Speaker 1: those handwritten notes and photographs started coming back, ready to
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  Speaker 1: be copied as advertisements for his new vin Mariani, and
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  Speaker 1: the reviews were glowing. Within a few years, Angelo was
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  Speaker 1: publishing booklets filled with the praise for his tonic. Artists, writers,
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  Speaker 1: and other well known figures of the day all got
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  Speaker 1: in on the fun. Although it's really not a surprise
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  Speaker 1: that a product that took its first steps in the
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  Speaker 1: opera should find well known musicians and composers who are
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  Speaker 1: willing to sing its praises. Some even sent back a
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  Speaker 1: few bars of music sketched out by hand as a
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  Speaker 1: thank you for Angelo's Tonic. With each passing wave of interest,
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  Speaker 1: Angelo had new ideas for how to spread the word
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  Speaker 1: about his vin Mariani. By the eighteen nineties, he was
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  Speaker 1: selling it as a tonic and stimulant for the brain,
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  Speaker 1: body and nerves. His advertisement said that if it was
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  Speaker 1: taken two or three times a day, in addition to
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  Speaker 1: soothing the throat, lungs, and stomach of a singer. It
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  Speaker 1: could cure influenza, nervousness, anemia, insomnia, even melancholy and impotence.
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  Speaker 1: If that sounds like what we might call creative writing,
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  Speaker 1: consider that literary titans like H. G. Wells and A.
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  Speaker 1: Meal Zola used their pens to support it too, and
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  Speaker 1: speaking for the men of medical science, apparently, the president
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  Speaker 1: of the British Medical Association said that Vin MARIANI drinkers good,
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  Speaker 1: and I quote climb mountains without exhaustion. These were grand
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  Speaker 1: claims for a simple beverage, but by then there were
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  Speaker 1: grand names behind his lavish posters and books. Thomas Edison
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  Speaker 1: signed on and anywhere the American inventor was respected, Angelo
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  Speaker 1: could expect that his tonic would find interest. William McKinley
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  Speaker 1: edit his signature as well, after he was elected President
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  Speaker 1: of the United States in There were testimonials for doctors
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  Speaker 1: and drinkers beyond the US, too, like the Imperial Princess
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  Speaker 1: of Brazil and the kings of Spain, Greece and Sweden.
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  Speaker 1: On top of that, three popes added their recommendation. Pope
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  Speaker 1: Leo the Eighth even sent Angelo a gold medal embossed
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  Speaker 1: with an image of his head. It was everything that
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  Speaker 1: Angelo Mariani could have wished for. His patent recipe had
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  Speaker 1: swept the world and the gold flowed back to him
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  Speaker 1: in Paris. But his twice a day tonic wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: only thing brewing. You see, there was trouble on the way.
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  Speaker 1: First copycats had ung up in his wake. One Georgia
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  Speaker 1: pharmacist in the United States in the eighteen eighties whipped
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  Speaker 1: up a concoction that added caffeine to a recipe very
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  Speaker 1: much like Angelo's Vin Mariani. He even publicized it as
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  Speaker 1: a French wine that could cure what ails you. But
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  Speaker 1: if competitors swooping in to take advantage of his advertising
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  Speaker 1: innovations upset Angelo, there were even bigger concerns on the horizon,
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  Speaker 1: and they went right to the heart of things his recipe.
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  Speaker 1: You see, at the end of the eighteen hundreds, prohibition
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  Speaker 1: efforts were on the rise, seeing as how a good
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  Speaker 1: portion of the beverage was wine. That would have been
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  Speaker 1: bad enough, but soon people started to see a problem
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  Speaker 1: with the other ingredient, those aromatic leaves that really gave
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  Speaker 1: his wine tonic pizzazz. After all they were coca leaves,
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  Speaker 1: and it was starting to become common knowledge that what
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  Speaker 1: the coca leaves produced, a stimulant known as cocaine, had
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  Speaker 1: a dark, addictive downside. As the news spread, tonic drinkers
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  Speaker 1: on both sides of the Atlantic slowly woke up to
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  Speaker 1: the horror of what they had in their cabinets, and
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  Speaker 1: sales of vin Mariani went down, way down. Angelo tried
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  Speaker 1: to adapt, of course, he changed his formula, no more
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  Speaker 1: coca leaves, which he proclaimed in a series of new advertisements,
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  Speaker 1: but by then it was too late. The buying public
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  Speaker 1: had already decided that vin Mariani was not the drink
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  Speaker 1: of the future. If that stung Angelo, it couldn't have
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  Speaker 1: been the only thing that hurt. Take for instance, the
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  Speaker 1: realization that his rivals were more successful at rebranding the
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  Speaker 1: drinks they had modeled on his rivals. Like that Georgia pharmacist.
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  Speaker 1: His drink, originally called the French Wine of Coca, had
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  Speaker 1: also changed its recipe. It took on a new name,
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  Speaker 1: leaning away from the coca leaves and towards the source
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  Speaker 1: of its caffeine, the cola nut, and its sales only
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  Speaker 1: continued to soar Angelo's vin Mariani was consigned to history,
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  Speaker 1: but that Georgia pharmacists knockoff became America's drink of choice
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  Speaker 1: during Prohibition. His name John Pemberton and his version of
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  Speaker 1: Angelo's bever age. Today we call it Coca cola. Running
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  Speaker 1: a marathon or half marathon is no small feat. It
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  Speaker 1: takes months of training to condition one's body, building up
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  Speaker 1: the stamina to endure miles of running at a time
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  Speaker 1: requires dedication, proper equipment, and the will to persevere. Olympic
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  Speaker 1: athletes Bill Rogers and Steve Prefontaine ran anywhere between six
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  Speaker 1: and thirteen miles a day, seven days a week. They
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  Speaker 1: never let the cold, or rain or snow keep them
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  Speaker 1: from achieving their goals. For them, running wasn't a job
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  Speaker 1: or a responsibility, it was life. But for Ludovine Hamlin,
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  Speaker 1: running was just away to pass the time. Ludovine or
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  Speaker 1: Lou as she was called, was well known around her
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  Speaker 1: hometown of Elkmont, Alabama. Everyone was really it was hard
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  Speaker 1: to stay a stranger in a town of only four
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  Speaker 1: hundred people. For the last several years, an annual charity
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  Speaker 1: run called the Elkmont Trackless Train trek half marathon had
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  Speaker 1: been held to raise money for the town's high school.
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  Speaker 1: Runners gather in the parking lot of a local business
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  Speaker 1: before taking off on the thirteen point one mile race
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  Speaker 1: throughout town and on the morning of January six, two
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  Speaker 1: thousand sixteen, the event started, like every year before it,
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  Speaker 1: One sixty five competitors set out with their lofty spirits
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  Speaker 1: and equally high hopes. As the fastest racers pulled ahead,
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  Speaker 1: their sneakers pounding the pavement beneath them, a dark horse
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  Speaker 1: approached out of nowhere. No one knew where she'd come from,
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  Speaker 1: but it was clear she had never raced before, and
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  Speaker 1: yet she blazed ahead, speeding past some while keeping pace
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  Speaker 1: with others. By the half mile mark, she was already
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  Speaker 1: in second place. Folks on the side of the road
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  Speaker 1: cheered the newcomer on, although they also tilted their heads
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  Speaker 1: at some of her odd behaved of year. For one,
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  Speaker 1: she seemed preoccupied by the road kill she encountered along
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  Speaker 1: the route. She also graciously accepted a slice of pizza
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  Speaker 1: from one bystander, which she ate a little of before
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  Speaker 1: burying the rest in the dirt. Then she strolled over
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  Speaker 1: to the nearby creek for a few swigs of water
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  Speaker 1: to wash it all down. Hydrated and happy for the
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  Speaker 1: energy boost, Lou continued on, garnering encouragement from fellow runners
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  Speaker 1: and onlookers alike. She also made sure to say hello
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  Speaker 1: to the donkeys and cows in the fields as she passed.
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  Speaker 1: But as more runners flew past her, Lou knew that
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  Speaker 1: she had to get back on track. The end was
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  Speaker 1: in sight. When the race had finally ended, Lou had
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  Speaker 1: crossed the finish line after one hour and thirty two minutes,
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  Speaker 1: not bad for someone who had never run a half
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  Speaker 1: marathon before. Still, some of the other runners were skeptical.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't remember her being at the starting line, and
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  Speaker 1: it was obvious she hadn't registered because she wasn't wearing
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  Speaker 1: a number on her chest. Had she snuck in after
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  Speaker 1: the race had started, hoping that no one would notice. No.
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  Speaker 1: Lu didn't even know she was in a race. She
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  Speaker 1: had seen everyone running and had just decided to jump
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  Speaker 1: in and join them. However, a few people did recognize
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  Speaker 1: her from the parking lot at the start of the race,
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  Speaker 1: remarking two officials and local journalists afterward how they had
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  Speaker 1: said hi to her while she had walked her way
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  Speaker 1: through the crowd. The explanation for her being there was simple.
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  Speaker 1: Her mother had let her go outside that morning to
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  Speaker 1: stroll around the family's forty acre farm, and as always,
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  Speaker 1: Lou had wandered off, this time finding her way to
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  Speaker 1: the Elkman's half marathon. With nothing better to do, she
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  Speaker 1: decided to join in. There was no way anyone would
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  Speaker 1: have stopped her. She was only two and a half
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  Speaker 1: years old and a dog, a bloodhound in fact, one
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  Speaker 1: who would have been trained to hunt escaped prisoners. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: her lack of focus made her unfit to serve, but
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  Speaker 1: her nose perfectly sniffed out a spot in the race.
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  Speaker 1: She ran all thirteen point one miles, after which her
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  Speaker 1: photo was sent to her owner, April, by one of
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  Speaker 1: April's coworkers. It wasn't out of the ordinary for Lou
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  Speaker 1: to go into town by herself, and most people knew
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  Speaker 1: who she belonged to. April thought that she had gone
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  Speaker 1: to see the post race hubbub and even mentioned how
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  Speaker 1: cute it was that someone had placed the medal around
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  Speaker 1: her neck before they took the photo. Except it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: a prop. Ludovine had earned that medal herself winning seventh place,
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  Speaker 1: and the Elkmont Trackless Train Trek half Marathon. Today it
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  Speaker 1: has a much simpler name, the hound Dog Half Marathon.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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  Speaker 1: Ye