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The Hobo King: Leon Ray Livingston, Chapter Two · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. This is part two, an
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Speaker 1: hour two part series on the self proclaimed hobo king
0:39
Speaker 1: of not just the United States, but also believes in
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Speaker 1: Central America. He goes by two or three names. He
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Speaker 1: was born Leon Ray Livingston in eighteen seventy two. He
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Speaker 1: is perhaps better known on the roads and rails of
0:54
Speaker 1: North America as a Number one. If you haven't heard
0:59
Speaker 1: part one today's episode, please please please pause this listen
1:04
Speaker 1: to that part and then tune into this episode, because
1:07
Speaker 1: I promise you it will it will make way more sense. Uh.
1:12
Speaker 1: My my name is Ben. I will not reveal my
1:17
Speaker 1: hobo name on air. Yeah. I still go by the
1:20
Speaker 1: squeaky chair. Um. That's my hobo name. Noel is my
1:23
Speaker 1: my Christian name. Uh the name my mother gave me.
1:27
Speaker 1: Is it your middle name? Christian? Yes, it actually is.
1:30
Speaker 1: That's that's I didn't even think about that. Uh, Noel Christian,
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Speaker 1: squeaky chair Brown. That's what they call me on the rails. Um.
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Speaker 1: A number one is what they called our boy Livingston
1:39
Speaker 1: on the rails. Uh. And it was after his return
1:43
Speaker 1: from that time spent in Central America that he decided
1:47
Speaker 1: to give himself this nickname that would really cement his legacy,
1:51
Speaker 1: a number one. He wrote first about this in his
1:54
Speaker 1: book Um. He said the Moniker was given to him
1:59
Speaker 1: by a traveling hanging by the name of Frenchie. Um.
2:02
Speaker 1: He said, every tramp gives his kid a nickname, a
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Speaker 1: name that will distinguish him from all other members of
2:07
Speaker 1: the craft. I love that, referring to this life as
2:10
Speaker 1: the craft. Um, you have been a good lad while
2:14
Speaker 1: you have been with me, In fact, been always a
2:16
Speaker 1: number one and everything he had to do. And kid,
2:20
Speaker 1: take my advice. If you have to be anything in life,
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Speaker 1: even if a tramp, try to be a number one
2:25
Speaker 1: all the time and in everything you undertake Um. He
2:29
Speaker 1: also recommended that that he that that livingstone leave his
2:34
Speaker 1: mark literally everywhere that he went by carving a number
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Speaker 1: one into mile markers UM as he passed them on
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Speaker 1: on his train travels. Uh, so people would know that
2:45
Speaker 1: he'd been there. Um. And this really gets into our
2:50
Speaker 1: idea of hobo code and of a secret language of
2:54
Speaker 1: symbols that were used by those in this kind of
2:58
Speaker 1: freewheeling traveling lie to help communicate with one another non verbally.
3:03
Speaker 1: And here's the thing been to your point in the
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Speaker 1: previous episode, Uh, today you can still find a number
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Speaker 1: one scribbles under bridges. In addition to this kind of
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Speaker 1: series of hieroglyphs that Livingston supposedly at the very least
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Speaker 1: helped to proliferate and preserve and possibly even created. Um
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Speaker 1: something that I know you've been fascinated with for a
3:27
Speaker 1: long time, Ben hobo code. Yeah, what a first off
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Speaker 1: shout out someone who has written their mark in all
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Speaker 1: of our hearts. I would say one of my favorite
3:39
Speaker 1: off the grid travelers, Le Bush, who is a close
3:42
Speaker 1: associate of our super producer Casey Pegram. You're right, Noel,
3:50
Speaker 1: hobo code is a fascinating thing to the point about
3:56
Speaker 1: a one I know a lot of us listening today
3:59
Speaker 1: or one dream about the etymology of the phrase. We
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Speaker 1: know that it traces at least back to eighteen thirty seven.
4:09
Speaker 1: It was probably used in Lloyd's of London, the insurance
4:15
Speaker 1: companies UH maritime system for rating of merchant vessels of
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Speaker 1: commercial watercraft, which actually jibes with Livingstone's story of you know,
4:29
Speaker 1: hitting the ocean as well. As the rails, So perhaps
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Speaker 1: Frenchie himself had some sort of sailor stories in his background.
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Speaker 1: Also not a bad steak sauce. Hobo code is a
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Speaker 1: is a tricky thing, right you'll you know, one of
4:48
Speaker 1: the big revelations that you can learn about hoboeing in general,
4:54
Speaker 1: the tramp lifestyle, the vagabond lifestyle, is that it still
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Speaker 1: exists here in the United tod States, uh, and in
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Speaker 1: other parts of the world. But how how often was
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Speaker 1: hobo code used, how ubiquitous was it or how rare
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Speaker 1: was it. We know that you can find books dating
5:16
Speaker 1: back to the early twenty century that show at least
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Speaker 1: some of these pictograms. There are the things that we
5:24
Speaker 1: each described in episode one. Uh, you know, like a
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Speaker 1: circle with an arrow saying go this way or nol
5:32
Speaker 1: you mentioned the a frame tattoo that you're considering. Yeah,
5:37
Speaker 1: it just means safe harbor, which is kind of broad.
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Speaker 1: I like that as a concept, just the idea of like,
5:43
Speaker 1: you know, finding refuge somewhere. I think that's sort of
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Speaker 1: the idea. There would be ones that would indicate the
5:49
Speaker 1: water is bad. They would be like you know, people
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Speaker 1: would draw it, maybe with a piece of chalk, on
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Speaker 1: a well, implying that the water was contaminated in some way.
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Speaker 1: There would be very specific ones like there's a kindly
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Speaker 1: old lady in this town that will give you free food,
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Speaker 1: you know, things like that. It really was interesting how
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Speaker 1: specific some of them would get when you look at
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Speaker 1: them pulled back like you can. You can google these.
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Speaker 1: They really do resemble hieroglyphics in a lot of ways.
6:16
Speaker 1: Is the shape of them. Oh and by the way,
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Speaker 1: you can get a hobo code coffee mug from Society
6:21
Speaker 1: six right now, um, which is pretty cool. There's one
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Speaker 1: that says, uh, yeah, kind lady lives here. Um. That
6:29
Speaker 1: is actually a cute little kittie cat. Two lines next
6:33
Speaker 1: to each other, parallel lines says the sky is the limit.
6:37
Speaker 1: Not quite sure what that means. There's one that looks
6:40
Speaker 1: like a fermata, which is a musical symbol that you
6:43
Speaker 1: put over a note implying that you hold it indefinitely. Um.
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Speaker 1: So it's like an arc and a little dot in
6:48
Speaker 1: the middle. And I do believe that one means that
6:52
Speaker 1: the authorities in this town are hostile. And that would
6:55
Speaker 1: be a lot of these, because you know, hoboes weren't
6:58
Speaker 1: taken too kindly in some cities, in some towns, they
7:01
Speaker 1: would be around a town on a rail where that
7:04
Speaker 1: came from um and you know, so they these symbols
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Speaker 1: would be to kind of warren fellow travelers that maybe
7:12
Speaker 1: your presence here would not be welcomed, that you'd be
7:14
Speaker 1: met with hostility and even violence. Yeah, and it makes
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Speaker 1: sense that these sort of symbols would proliferate. They have
7:24
Speaker 1: three very clever things about them. First, they function in
7:29
Speaker 1: a camouflaged way. If you are not familiar with where
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Speaker 1: to look, if you are not familiar with what these
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Speaker 1: symbols mean, they could easily be taken as errant graffiti. Second,
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Speaker 1: they're very easy to make. There's nothing, you know, you
7:50
Speaker 1: don't have to be a master artist to carve out
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Speaker 1: uh you know, straight lines, triangles and circles. But it's
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Speaker 1: still conveys the message. And Third, it functions as an
8:04
Speaker 1: invisible language. It's it's a form of communication, right. That
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Speaker 1: is strictly for those in the know. It's not clear
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Speaker 1: yet whether Livingstone played a huge role in creating a
8:20
Speaker 1: lot of hobo code, but he is credited with mainstreaming this.
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Speaker 1: I would say because for a lot of people in
8:29
Speaker 1: the us, especially people who are well off enough to
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Speaker 1: buy books and to you know, have the leisure time
8:36
Speaker 1: to read books. This is the moment they learn about
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Speaker 1: this secret language. They learn about it from the self
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Speaker 1: appointed hobo King Livingstone, and he is like, right now,
8:50
Speaker 1: to put it in perspective, if if Livingstone were live
8:53
Speaker 1: in he would be doing ted talks. He would be
8:58
Speaker 1: the guy with a clicker in a really nice suit
9:01
Speaker 1: talking about my thirty years as a hobo and what
9:05
Speaker 1: that teaches us about America. Yeah, an entrepreneurial stick tuitiveness.
9:11
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is he became more of a cultural
9:15
Speaker 1: figure that like more of a media representation of a
9:21
Speaker 1: hobo than an actual hobo. That's absolutely true. Band and
9:24
Speaker 1: we mentioned the top of the show he had like
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Speaker 1: a forty dollar suit and he carried around a weird
9:29
Speaker 1: collection of autograph pictures. Isn't that right then, that he
9:33
Speaker 1: would use to impress people or I guess just you know,
9:36
Speaker 1: how do you even have access to these? Who was it, Oh,
9:39
Speaker 1: Thomas Anderson, William Howard taft Uh, Theodore Roosevelt, who is,
9:45
Speaker 1: as everybody knows, most famous for his several appearances here
9:51
Speaker 1: on Ridiculous History and Uh. Yeah, he's creating his own story,
9:59
Speaker 1: you know. And and it's it's a snowball effect, right,
10:02
Speaker 1: it's an aggregate process. He begins to influence the world
10:08
Speaker 1: around him, and he is increasingly attempting to, at this
10:13
Speaker 1: point in his life, lead people away from a life
10:17
Speaker 1: on the road or a life on the rails. In fact,
10:20
Speaker 1: how exciting is this If you are a reader in
10:24
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, you open a book and you
10:28
Speaker 1: see a disclaimer. First off, and this disclaimer says, wandering,
10:34
Speaker 1: once it becomes a habit is almost incurable. So never
10:38
Speaker 1: run away, but stay at home as a roving lad
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Speaker 1: usually ends in becoming a confirmed tramp, you know what
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Speaker 1: I mean. I don't know how you guys felt when
10:48
Speaker 1: you were kids watching home movies and you would see
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Speaker 1: the FBI warning coming up. I always thought that made
10:54
Speaker 1: something legit, you know what I mean. So that's how
10:56
Speaker 1: people felt when they read these books. They saw the disclaimer.
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Speaker 1: It's a page turner. Uh. He said that it was
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Speaker 1: a pitiful existence that would end up leading people to
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Speaker 1: a popper's grave. It's illustrative of I don't know, like
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Speaker 1: ostensibly it's a warning, but I think it's more so
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Speaker 1: the barnum aspect I was talking about in episode one,
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Speaker 1: he is he's trying to entice in tantalize people. Yeah,
11:24
Speaker 1: it reminds me of like that episode we did about
11:26
Speaker 1: wanderlust and how it was like almost looked at it
11:28
Speaker 1: as a as a disease, that kind of warning where
11:31
Speaker 1: it's like stay put or else you're gonna become some
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Speaker 1: kind of pariah, some sort of the social you know,
11:38
Speaker 1: like leper. Right. Yeah, I think that's I think that's
11:42
Speaker 1: a good observation too. We have to remember that this
11:45
Speaker 1: is happening during the during a massive expansionist phase right
11:51
Speaker 1: in in the US or in North America, and so
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Speaker 1: people are, even if people aren't traveling widely there, fascinated
12:01
Speaker 1: by the idea of doing so. I mean, it's a dream,
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Speaker 1: isn't it, to to travel without hindrance? Uh? And it's
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Speaker 1: a dream that Livingstone capitalizes on. He is making himself
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Speaker 1: a celebrity. To your earlier point, Noel, Uh. Not only
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Speaker 1: was he carrying around autographs from notable historical figures were
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Speaker 1: the Titans of the day, he also this is how
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Speaker 1: self aware he is. He's also seeking out local news
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Speaker 1: reporters in every city of note that he happens across.
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Speaker 1: So he's in St. Louis, you know, maybe he goes
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Speaker 1: back to Trucky, California. Who knows, he's in Poughkeepsie, He's
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Speaker 1: in Atlanta, wherever. I'm just we can make cities up.
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Speaker 1: At this point, one of the first things he does
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Speaker 1: is go to the local newspaper office and say, have
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Speaker 1: you heard of me may number one, the Hobo King,
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Speaker 1: And I'll do an interview with you. And it works.
13:02
Speaker 1: People love these stories. They get published everywhere, and so
13:07
Speaker 1: he becomes so well known that authors and artists start
13:13
Speaker 1: picking up this idea. You know, he represents this concept.
13:17
Speaker 1: Jack London, author of White Fang and The Call of
13:22
Speaker 1: the Wild, and um, I think one of my favorite
13:25
Speaker 1: stories from Jack London is a short story called to
13:28
Speaker 1: Build a Fire. This guy, Jack London, he loves, he's
13:32
Speaker 1: growing up and he loves a number one. He actually
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Speaker 1: he writes to Livingston and says, you know, tell me
13:41
Speaker 1: about the hobo lifestyle in the late eighteen hundreds, and
13:45
Speaker 1: they actually go on a trip together, I think, an
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Speaker 1: epic road trip, which, by the way, Livingstone also capitalizes
13:52
Speaker 1: on in a later book called From Coast to Coast
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Speaker 1: with Jack London amazing zing title. It's Get This Little.
14:02
Speaker 1: It comes out in v one year after Jack London
14:07
Speaker 1: actually passes away. Oh yeah, that's a new ben. You
14:12
Speaker 1: are spot on about Livingstone being like a proto ted
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Speaker 1: talk type. I mean, seriously, he really is kind of
14:20
Speaker 1: cultivating this uh cult of personality. I guess for lack
14:25
Speaker 1: of a better expression, not to be redundant with reusing
14:28
Speaker 1: the cult sound twice, but it's true he's building like
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Speaker 1: a lifestyle um around this kind of hobo world um
14:37
Speaker 1: and absolutely capitalizing on this uh, this sort of hobo
14:41
Speaker 1: lifestyle um. And you know, considering you know, we we
14:45
Speaker 1: we've talked about the romanticized version of it that he
14:47
Speaker 1: certainly was the pioneer of. But this was not as
14:51
Speaker 1: much of a choice at this point as we maybe
14:54
Speaker 1: originally set it up to be. Uh. It really was
14:57
Speaker 1: people that were in desperate need of income and would
15:00
Speaker 1: do whatever it took and go whatever wherever they needed
15:03
Speaker 1: to go in order to get it. And we're on
15:05
Speaker 1: the heels of the Great Depression too, when this lifestyle
15:08
Speaker 1: absolutely became critical for people to even survive and migrant
15:13
Speaker 1: farm workers and we know how that went if you've
15:16
Speaker 1: read Steinbeck's wonderful chronicle of of this time period, The
15:20
Speaker 1: Grapes of Wrath, so a little problematic that he's sort
15:23
Speaker 1: of capitalizing on this. He's almost sort of like a Phobo.
15:27
Speaker 1: I just coined that. Sorry, it's okay, I like it, though, phobo. Uh,
15:31
Speaker 1: you know, he really is sort of doing this for
15:33
Speaker 1: his own big picture kind of publishing rights, kind of
15:39
Speaker 1: residual return, kind of in the game. Right. Yeah, So
15:45
Speaker 1: he predates the Great Depression, he anticipates it, and this
15:50
Speaker 1: is still the romanticized version of the the vagabonds in
15:57
Speaker 1: in US culture because a great Depression has not hit.
16:02
Speaker 1: When it does, and when we get to the stuff
16:05
Speaker 1: Steinbeck's writing about, you know, we're talking about thousands and
16:10
Speaker 1: thousands of people who didn't want to travel for fun.
16:15
Speaker 1: They wanted to stay at home, they wanted to keep
16:17
Speaker 1: their house. Uh, this is not a spiritual journey for them.
16:23
Speaker 1: Uh nowadays, And I do, like Phobo, No, I think that.
16:29
Speaker 1: I think that's what written. But nowadays, Uh, the term
16:32
Speaker 1: would be something like google with two os O O
16:37
Speaker 1: g L E. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly,
16:40
Speaker 1: but you can learn more about it. That's the thing.
16:43
Speaker 1: Livingston did not have to do this. He liked doing this.
16:49
Speaker 1: He was he was primarily an author, a depict or,
16:54
Speaker 1: a describer of this life. In fact, he had actually,
16:59
Speaker 1: like many itinerant travelers of the time, he had a
17:03
Speaker 1: couple of let's call him home basis, let's call him
17:06
Speaker 1: stop ins. You know how, I don't know, Casey. Have
17:10
Speaker 1: you guys ever had an outside cat as a friend
17:13
Speaker 1: and and like, you know, the cats got somewhere that
17:17
Speaker 1: it sleeps, but it stops by houses. Yes, absolutely. In fact,
17:21
Speaker 1: there is a there's a gas station around the corner
17:24
Speaker 1: from my old house where the the employees there would
17:28
Speaker 1: actually put out food, and so that place was just
17:30
Speaker 1: like a hub of of itinerant cat friends. What about you, Casey, Yeah,
17:37
Speaker 1: my dad at his office had that sort of cat,
17:41
Speaker 1: called him Tiger, and he hung around for years and
17:43
Speaker 1: years just you know, coming to the back door and
17:45
Speaker 1: getting a little bit of food, a little bit of milk,
17:47
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and kind of going on his
17:49
Speaker 1: way and very friendly but at the same time assertive
17:52
Speaker 1: and independent. You know. Yeah, they're making a circuit, right,
17:55
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's kind of what Livingston a peers
18:00
Speaker 1: to be doing. One of his home bases is a
18:03
Speaker 1: place called Mrs Cunningham's boarding House in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania.
18:09
Speaker 1: Mrs Cunningham's boarding House, by the way, it sounds like
18:12
Speaker 1: something that Noel and Casey and I would make up
18:16
Speaker 1: as a as a wholesome spot in our screenplay. Right. Oh,
18:21
Speaker 1: let's go to Mrs Cunningham's boarding House. You know they
18:24
Speaker 1: have a Sunday roast every oh Sunday. Look, we're still
18:29
Speaker 1: working out the script. But that's where he wrote a
18:32
Speaker 1: lot of books, is indeed, including The Ways of the Hobo,
18:36
Speaker 1: where he actually claimed that the house became a mecca
18:41
Speaker 1: to other hobo's. Of of of his ilk, which he
18:45
Speaker 1: referred to as chronic hobo's seems a little insulting, um,
18:49
Speaker 1: but whatever. And he referred to his friends Hobo Mike
18:53
Speaker 1: and Denver Johnny. I love Hobo Mike, just just get
18:56
Speaker 1: right to it. Uh and uh. And they would come by,
19:00
Speaker 1: you know, just to kind of wrap and and get
19:02
Speaker 1: some advice and um, you know, and just kind of
19:05
Speaker 1: have someone to spend some time with a little companionship. Um.
19:08
Speaker 1: When they when they when they passed through. Speaking of companionship,
19:18
Speaker 1: ridiculous history. It's We've got a twist for you. This
19:22
Speaker 1: story turns out to be a little bit of a
19:26
Speaker 1: rom com because you see, Livingstone did not spend his
19:31
Speaker 1: entire life on the road. He did not die on
19:35
Speaker 1: the rails. In nineteen fourteen, he officially tied the knot
19:41
Speaker 1: with a woman named Mary Troski. Uh And and he
19:47
Speaker 1: tried to settle down in Erie, Pennsylvania, nol. What was
19:51
Speaker 1: the what was the word that people were using as
19:55
Speaker 1: the female equivalent of hobo? What what do you call it?
19:58
Speaker 1: It was boat bo b b o E T t e. Uh. Yeah,
20:05
Speaker 1: I don't know about that one, but it's interesting. Remember
20:08
Speaker 1: remember in the wolf Whistle episode, how we were totally
20:10
Speaker 1: taken for a ride for the idea of the female
20:13
Speaker 1: equivalent of the wolf Whistle calls the slurp utter fallacy.
20:20
Speaker 1: Uh loved it though that We took us all a
20:22
Speaker 1: minute to kind of be like, wait a minute. Sometimes
20:25
Speaker 1: it's again, there's a lot of a lot of similarities
20:27
Speaker 1: in this story where, uh, sometimes you know, you can't
20:30
Speaker 1: let the facts stand in the way of a good story,
20:33
Speaker 1: as my mother would say. But yeah, he settled down
20:35
Speaker 1: the Hobo king a number one himself settled down in Eerie, Pennsylvania. Uh,
20:41
Speaker 1: and he spent time, you know, working various jobs, uh,
20:44
Speaker 1: from electric companies to steal um all around the area.
20:49
Speaker 1: And eventually, according to one source that we found, um,
20:54
Speaker 1: he got into real estate. It's pretty lucrative, um compared
20:58
Speaker 1: to all of these you know itinerant jobs that he'd
21:00
Speaker 1: been doing over the years. And I don't know, I
21:02
Speaker 1: we don't have a sense that he like made a
21:04
Speaker 1: mint or anything off of his publishing. Ben what what
21:07
Speaker 1: did you discover in that department, because he definitely was
21:11
Speaker 1: sort of a minor celebrity at this point. You know,
21:14
Speaker 1: he really did was kind of the most famous hobo
21:16
Speaker 1: in America. Can't imagine they didn't get some some good
21:19
Speaker 1: coin from all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, he was. He
21:24
Speaker 1: was no uh man, some Musa or Jeff Bezos. Uh,
21:29
Speaker 1: those are probably well mansa Musa is the richest person
21:33
Speaker 1: in the history of civilization that we know of, and
21:36
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos is well on the way. But yeah, he
21:40
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, he didn't buy an entire railroad for instance.
21:45
Speaker 1: That's something that you would do if you liked railroads
21:48
Speaker 1: and you were a billionaire. Multimillionaire. Uh, he probably was
21:54
Speaker 1: traveling the lecture circuit for income. He probably needed to
21:59
Speaker 1: do you that And and it was very common for
22:03
Speaker 1: people of note too become orators later in life. And
22:10
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, the majority of his lectures about this, uh,
22:16
Speaker 1: this movable life, let's call it. Actually, I'm gonna write
22:19
Speaker 1: that down. That's a great title for a story. I
22:21
Speaker 1: love this, this movable life that he is into. Uh.
22:25
Speaker 1: He he speaks against it in these lectures. You know, Mama,
22:30
Speaker 1: don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys, except
22:33
Speaker 1: switch out cowboys for hoboes. And at this point we
22:36
Speaker 1: have arrived at the time in history when the Great
22:39
Speaker 1: Depression does hit. Livingstone is alive. He is fighting against tramping. Unfortunately,
22:49
Speaker 1: right now we know that he made these anti hobo,
22:54
Speaker 1: anti vagabond lectures, but we don't have a copy of them,
22:58
Speaker 1: so we don't know why he actually said. And once
23:02
Speaker 1: again we find ourselves left with rumors. Right yeah, and
23:07
Speaker 1: they ranged from the fantastic to the banal. Uh. My favorite,
23:12
Speaker 1: which would just be like the poetic way uh for
23:15
Speaker 1: him to end his life, is that he died in
23:17
Speaker 1: a train wreck in Houston, Texas in nineteen forty four. UM,
23:22
Speaker 1: but he apparently had impersonators because he had such a
23:27
Speaker 1: you know, high profile, that he literally had hobo copycats
23:30
Speaker 1: that were sort of biting his stick. And UM it's
23:34
Speaker 1: possible if this was confused with a nineteen twelve train
23:37
Speaker 1: wreck that killed one of these pretenders to the crown,
23:41
Speaker 1: the hobo crown mainly Uh. The most reliable version of
23:48
Speaker 1: his passing UM has him UM succumbing to heart failure
23:52
Speaker 1: UH in his home on April five, at the right
23:56
Speaker 1: old age of seventy one, with his wife standing by. UM.
24:01
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting, but makes a lot of sense.
24:04
Speaker 1: I guess that, you know, somebody who was so invested
24:09
Speaker 1: in mythologizing his his life and becoming this larger than
24:13
Speaker 1: life kind of figure that there's still some mystery that
24:15
Speaker 1: surrounds the way he left uh, this mortal coil UM.
24:21
Speaker 1: And you know, he's not someone that I'd ever heard
24:24
Speaker 1: of UM before, you know, gave hipped us to this topic.
24:29
Speaker 1: But he was dramatized in a film. His relationship with
24:33
Speaker 1: Jack London is probably the most enduring UM pop culture
24:37
Speaker 1: kind of uh remnant of his story. UM. And Lee
24:41
Speaker 1: Marvin actually played him in a film in nineteen seventy
24:45
Speaker 1: three called The Emperor of the North, which was based
24:47
Speaker 1: on Livingstone's time on the Road with Jack London and
24:51
Speaker 1: London's book The Road. And then, of course we see
24:54
Speaker 1: the thematic descendant there in Jack Caro Wax on The Road.
25:01
Speaker 1: I I'm not gonna disparage one or the other. I'm
25:05
Speaker 1: just gonna say Jack London wrote a book called The Road.
25:09
Speaker 1: Jack Carroll act later wrote a book called On the Road,
25:13
Speaker 1: sort of like Ghostbusters and the Real Ghostbusters. If you
25:16
Speaker 1: guys remember that animated series. I have a I have
25:21
Speaker 1: a book here that would be interesting for people who
25:23
Speaker 1: want another opinion. You see, while Livingstone is the self
25:27
Speaker 1: appointed hobo King, many people in that community did not
25:33
Speaker 1: consider him necessarily the be all end all. He was
25:37
Speaker 1: just the most mainstreamed version of people who were largely
25:43
Speaker 1: ignored by American society. There's a book I found called
25:48
Speaker 1: The Last Great American Hobo Case. You know, you guys
25:52
Speaker 1: can see that this face here on the zoom. This
25:56
Speaker 1: was published in and a Tree is what the author
26:01
Speaker 1: calls the life of the oldest active hobo left. This
26:07
Speaker 1: is strange because we see again the history doesn't ever
26:13
Speaker 1: stop you know what I mean, it doesn't exist in
26:15
Speaker 1: the past tense. There's so much more stuff we could
26:18
Speaker 1: talk about with hoboes, though, you know, hobo code importantly
26:24
Speaker 1: does actually exist to some degree. And for any of
26:27
Speaker 1: our fellow ridiculous historians who are saying, hey, maybe this
26:33
Speaker 1: hobo king didn't actually travel very much at all, we
26:38
Speaker 1: do have to point out that Susan Phillips, an anthropologist
26:43
Speaker 1: at Pitzer College, did not just find hobo code. She
26:48
Speaker 1: saw actual marks, actual marks from a number one, which
26:54
Speaker 1: means Leon Ray Livingston did at least hit the rails
26:59
Speaker 1: to some degree. So so there is some truth to
27:02
Speaker 1: his story. He's not completely lying, you know what I mean, Yeah, no,
27:06
Speaker 1: totally Again, it's the devil's in the details, right, But
27:09
Speaker 1: he wasn't the only one she found um references and
27:12
Speaker 1: and kind of tags. I guess you think of graffiti
27:14
Speaker 1: culture now and it's all about you know, having that
27:16
Speaker 1: name and having that style, or like you know with
27:18
Speaker 1: Boscuiati had the little crown, or it's all about people
27:21
Speaker 1: knowing exactly who you are and leaving your mark. That
27:24
Speaker 1: is largely where this came from. Is this kind of
27:26
Speaker 1: trained culture and this hobo culture and folks like Oakland
27:30
Speaker 1: Red and the Tucson Kid and what do we say
27:33
Speaker 1: earlier there was hobo Steve. Uh no, it wasn't Steve,
27:36
Speaker 1: but it was some hobo Mike. Hobo Mike, good old
27:39
Speaker 1: hobo Mike. I love that. And uh, you know, if
27:42
Speaker 1: I had been around in those days, I think Squeaky
27:44
Speaker 1: Chair would have would have made a dent. I think
27:47
Speaker 1: that would have been remembered fondly. Do you think people
27:50
Speaker 1: would have just started calling you squeaky Squeaky's Ah, that's
27:53
Speaker 1: way better. That's a way better hobo name. Ben. That's
27:56
Speaker 1: a really good point, do you you know? The From
28:00
Speaker 1: what I understood, the rule was in those days that
28:03
Speaker 1: someone it was like the same with any nickname, someone
28:06
Speaker 1: else had to give you the name. That's right. There's
28:09
Speaker 1: another fact that I was dying to mention throughout part
28:13
Speaker 1: one of this episode. Uh, we'll mention it now, but
28:18
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give the full story because we
28:21
Speaker 1: are a family show. You guys, remember the song Big
28:24
Speaker 1: Rock Candy Mountain Noll. This is familiar to you from
28:27
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know totally. Big Rock
28:31
Speaker 1: Candy Mountain is a relatively innocuous song. The version that
28:36
Speaker 1: exists in the modern day. How Whoever, the original version
28:42
Speaker 1: has an extra verse which is sinister and disturbing and
28:47
Speaker 1: gives light to the realities of living without a home,
28:53
Speaker 1: because you know, we we've mainly been focusing on in
28:56
Speaker 1: this one, especially you know, with living to himself, him
28:59
Speaker 1: having made this choice, uh, you know, very consciously because
29:02
Speaker 1: he had family. He his family what didn't even disown him.
29:06
Speaker 1: We have that part a little ways back where they
29:08
Speaker 1: write to him and are pleased to hear of his
29:10
Speaker 1: exploits and he probably could have gone home and you know,
29:13
Speaker 1: lived off of their largesse anytime he wanted to. They
29:17
Speaker 1: they seemed to do just fine. But we haven't even
29:20
Speaker 1: talked about the idea of like kids that are, you know,
29:23
Speaker 1: living this life because they have no parents, either their
29:27
Speaker 1: parents have died or maybe they were abused and they
29:30
Speaker 1: ran away. And yeah, the the lyric and Big Rock
29:33
Speaker 1: Cany Mountains all about kind of almost selling those kids
29:35
Speaker 1: into a type of slavery um and that is absolutely
29:39
Speaker 1: a thing if you think about, like in Pinocchio for example, Uh,
29:42
Speaker 1: the idea of those kids that are sort of these
29:45
Speaker 1: like living under sort of a much less benevolent hobo
29:49
Speaker 1: king who would you know, put these kids to work
29:52
Speaker 1: and and have them running grifts for for him, like
29:55
Speaker 1: an Oliver for example. UM, So there is absolutely a
29:58
Speaker 1: dark side to we have largely characterized as kind of
30:03
Speaker 1: like a freewheeling you know, sunny go where you want
30:07
Speaker 1: kind of mentality. UM, can't forget that. But it's very
30:11
Speaker 1: interesting how um this guy is essentially stood the test
30:17
Speaker 1: of time, largely I think because of his relationship with
30:20
Speaker 1: Jack London as being sort of one of the most
30:22
Speaker 1: famous hoboes in the history of of the the life,
30:27
Speaker 1: I guess. And he actually wrote twelve books on hobo
30:30
Speaker 1: life and you can still see his mark. Uh you know,
30:34
Speaker 1: etch gender Stone and underpasses. Because these train lines have
30:38
Speaker 1: been around for a long time, it's very difficult to
30:41
Speaker 1: just uproot that kind of infrastructure. I think. A great
30:49
Speaker 1: place to end this two part series, which I have
30:51
Speaker 1: absolutely enjoyed, is with just a couple of excerpts quite
30:55
Speaker 1: long from a disclaimer that Livingston put at the beginning
30:58
Speaker 1: of all twelve of his books. UM, where he kind
31:02
Speaker 1: of sets up with his backstory a little bit and
31:04
Speaker 1: sort of the choice he made, you know, to live
31:06
Speaker 1: this life. Um. But then he also does acknowledge that
31:10
Speaker 1: dark side that we talked about just a second ago. Yeah,
31:13
Speaker 1: there's interesting language here that indicates showmanship, uh, and also
31:17
Speaker 1: indicates a little bit of what I would call style
31:21
Speaker 1: in on it in the parlance of our own day.
31:24
Speaker 1: First off, he reveals his age. Perhaps some may think
31:28
Speaker 1: that a man who has attained only the age of
31:31
Speaker 1: thirty eight years has hardly enough a crewed experience to
31:34
Speaker 1: justify him in writing and autobiography. Good point, right, But
31:39
Speaker 1: then he uses pretty um academic language when later he says,
31:46
Speaker 1: we're other men of my age to write their life story.
31:49
Speaker 1: It could ordinarily be summed up with cesarean brevity. Really
31:53
Speaker 1: cesarean brevity. Is that even even in the early nineteen
31:58
Speaker 1: hundreds are people saying that, I don't know about that one. Ben.
32:01
Speaker 1: It's but he's definitely got a got a gift in
32:03
Speaker 1: terms of his colorful language and the way he paints
32:06
Speaker 1: a picture. Um. He wraps it up with this this uh,
32:09
Speaker 1: this description here that I think is a really good
32:11
Speaker 1: job of characterizing kind of the ups and the downs
32:14
Speaker 1: and all of the different pitfalls that can be associated
32:17
Speaker 1: with the hobo life. Uh. Quote there's a dark side
32:20
Speaker 1: to a tramp's life. For every mile stolen on trains,
32:23
Speaker 1: there is one escape from a horrible death. For each
32:26
Speaker 1: mile of beautiful scenery and food in plenty, there are
32:29
Speaker 1: many weary miles of hard walking with no food or
32:32
Speaker 1: even water, through mountain gorges and over parched deserts. For
32:36
Speaker 1: each warm summer night, there are ten bitter cold, long
32:39
Speaker 1: winter nights. For every kindness, there are a score of
32:42
Speaker 1: unfriendly acts. A tramp is constantly hounded by the minions
32:46
Speaker 1: of the law, is shunned by all humanity, and never
32:49
Speaker 1: knows the meaning of home and friends. You can read
32:52
Speaker 1: the entire disclaimer courtesy of Harvard University Online. Now just out,
33:00
Speaker 1: you know, just find your search engine of choice and
33:03
Speaker 1: check out Born to Ramble, Harvard University Hobo King Livingston.
33:09
Speaker 1: We've got the keywords for you. I do have to see.
33:13
Speaker 1: This guy is a fantastic writer, and it speaks very
33:18
Speaker 1: highly of his craft that he is still so uh
33:23
Speaker 1: compelling and enjoyable today. In fact, Livingstone plays a huge
33:29
Speaker 1: part in the modern uh sort of archetype of the hobo.
33:38
Speaker 1: I believe a lot of our fellow ridiculous historians are
33:41
Speaker 1: probably familiar with the box Car Children book series. I
33:45
Speaker 1: don't know about you. I never read it, always more
33:48
Speaker 1: as scary stories to tell him the dark kind of guy.
33:50
Speaker 1: When Scholastic rolled through. Yeah, I never heard those either,
33:54
Speaker 1: but they were definitely on the shelf in my like,
33:56
Speaker 1: I want to say, fifth grade class seems about right.
33:59
Speaker 1: I was more to the more dark and depressing kind
34:01
Speaker 1: of stuff and like the Bridges to Terribithia and uh,
34:05
Speaker 1: you know, The Giver and all that stuff. But they
34:08
Speaker 1: were definitely super popular, um and absolutely kind of dramatized,
34:13
Speaker 1: made a little more palatable for a young adult audience
34:16
Speaker 1: of this kind of hobo life. But I'm sure there
34:18
Speaker 1: were some trials and tribulations in there. Again, having not
34:21
Speaker 1: read the books, I can't really say for sure, but
34:23
Speaker 1: I know they were very popular and absolutely influenced by
34:27
Speaker 1: this gentleman's proliferation of this kind of culture. I think
34:30
Speaker 1: the box I think maybe their parents passed away and
34:34
Speaker 1: they had to live in a box car or yeah,
34:39
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if anybody is a fan
34:41
Speaker 1: of box Car Shoulder and please please send us a
34:43
Speaker 1: summation arguing arguing four or against us reading it. Casey,
34:49
Speaker 1: I it looks like you're not You're not our big
34:53
Speaker 1: box car kids champion here. No. I mean I remember
34:57
Speaker 1: them from the Scholastic Books Fair, but I never picked
34:59
Speaker 1: up a copy of that series. Scholastic Book Fair was
35:02
Speaker 1: so awesome. I wish I wish we could have like
35:05
Speaker 1: we don't have those as adults. We just have bookstores
35:09
Speaker 1: and and Amazon. You know how cool would it be
35:13
Speaker 1: if if one day we were all working in our
35:16
Speaker 1: office and management just said, hey, everybody, stop everything, the
35:21
Speaker 1: book fares coming. I would lose my mind. Yeah, that
35:25
Speaker 1: sounds pretty perfect. Speaking of perfect, I gotta say this
35:28
Speaker 1: is maybe my favorite two parter we've ever done. Um.
35:31
Speaker 1: This one really had a lot of interesting twists and
35:34
Speaker 1: turns to it. And uh I I gotta pat ourselves
35:37
Speaker 1: on the back here, gentlemen. I'm really happy that we
35:40
Speaker 1: we split this up the way we did and gave
35:42
Speaker 1: Mr Livingston his do Yes, and we hope you enjoyed
35:46
Speaker 1: this journey. We would love to hear from you. What
35:49
Speaker 1: are your favorite tales of off the grid adventures? Have
35:55
Speaker 1: you ever found yourself traveling in in a similar fashion.
36:00
Speaker 1: If so, we want to hear your stories. You can
36:02
Speaker 1: find us on the internet. We're all over it. We
36:05
Speaker 1: are in Fact and Podcast. So we're on Facebook, We're
36:08
Speaker 1: on Instagram, we're on Twitter. You can also find us
36:10
Speaker 1: as individuals. Yeah, if you want to, you can hit
36:13
Speaker 1: me up on Instagram. I am at how Now Noel
36:15
Speaker 1: Brown and I am on Twitter as Ben Bolan hs W.
36:19
Speaker 1: I am on Instagram as uh Casey pegram number one fan. No, sorry, Casey,
36:26
Speaker 1: I don't I wasn't that creative. I'm just at them
36:30
Speaker 1: bowling on Instagram And you can also find us on Facebook,
36:33
Speaker 1: where we have a pretty cool group called Ridiculous Historians
36:36
Speaker 1: where you can interact with your fellow listeners and get
36:40
Speaker 1: into meme games and and lots of fun chat. Really
36:43
Speaker 1: good folks. There are lots of fun, nice, light hearted
36:45
Speaker 1: conversation on Ridiculous Histories on Facebook. You just have to
36:48
Speaker 1: name one or both or all three of us, or
36:51
Speaker 1: just say something that lets us know that you're a
36:53
Speaker 1: human being that actually knows that the show is is
36:56
Speaker 1: a thing and uh and you're in yes, send me, uh,
37:00
Speaker 1: send me an image of your favorite hobo code. Uh,
37:03
Speaker 1: here's a question too, if you could create hobo code
37:07
Speaker 1: for the twenty century. Wait where the twenty one Century, Casey,
37:11
Speaker 1: keep this part in. We'll just do it again. If
37:13
Speaker 1: you could create hobo code for the twenty feet century,
37:17
Speaker 1: what would it be. I imagine it would be like
37:19
Speaker 1: WiFi availability maybe yeah, or like, you know, public restrooms.
37:23
Speaker 1: That's a big thing, even if you're not a hobo.
37:26
Speaker 1: I mean, god, New York City, a free public restroom
37:28
Speaker 1: is like a unicorn. So yeah, Manhattan has a huge
37:32
Speaker 1: problem with that. I think it's part of the reason
37:34
Speaker 1: they could have so many Starbucks. They're functioning as the
37:38
Speaker 1: public restrooms of that South. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry Starbucks.
37:43
Speaker 1: But thanks as always to Christopher hassi Otis, to Casey Peckham,
37:48
Speaker 1: to Alex Williams, who composed that slapping bob you here
37:52
Speaker 1: at the beginning of every episode slapping Bop Bop and
37:56
Speaker 1: slap love it Love Alex Williams, and please check out
38:00
Speaker 1: his podcast Ephemera, available on the I Heart podcast network
38:04
Speaker 1: as well. Um Hughes, thanks to Eve's Jeff coach, Christopher
38:08
Speaker 1: Ostiotes here in spirit, Jonathan Strickland that devious question. We
38:11
Speaker 1: hope to have him back very very soon. And as always, man,
38:14
Speaker 1: thanks to you, Ben. This was a delightful romp back
38:17
Speaker 1: at you KNOWL. I guess we'll see each other on
38:19
Speaker 1: the road and we'll see you next time. For more
38:28
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
38:31
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.